The Three Brothers
by SimpleLaces
Summary: Two brothers, Ace and Sabo, live a nice peaceful life in the town of Water 7 while attending the One Piece Academy. Life for them was rather boring and dull. Well, that is until CPS calls them up to tell them that their abusive grandfather has died and they now have to take care of their baby brother, Luffy.
1. The Call To Change it All!

**~~~Chapter One~~~**

_~~The Call~~_

_Great spirits have often encountered _

_violent opposition from weak minds. _

_- Albert Einstein_

Water Seven was a well-known town, famous for good schools and friendly people. The village, with a Population 44,910, thrived as people went about their daily business of a friday afternoon. Some men were just getting home from work while others were shopping at one of the many small shops the lined the streets. The sound of car horns and chitter-chatter was mingled with flute music coming from a group of street performers. The slanted afternoon light gave everything a homey look as a sight wind passed through the moist air.

In Water Seven, down a rather quite and narrow residential street was an apartment called 'The Galley-La'. Not many folks living in the village knew of the housing, that is, in less you went One Piece Academy. Every signal student at the school lived, or knew someone who lived in one of the apartments. Since the building was so close to the school, it was very popular and convinced to live at.

Among everyone who lived in Galley-La, were two teenage boys who happened to be very close brothers. The first and oldest, was a lean yet tall blond-haired man. He had blue eyes and was well-known for a small gap in his white teeth and the fact that he always were a blue top-hat. He was known to his friends and brother as 'Sabo'. The younger brother, at 19-years-old and only younger by a few months, name was Ace. He was quite muscular with a full six-pack and a strong built. He had dark eyes and matching black raven hair that framed his freckle covered face nicely. He was well-known by the ladies as a man who never wear a t-shirt and loved to play with fire.

Sluggishly, Sabo made his way up the staircase of the apartment building, working his way up to the small upstairs apartment that he and his brother shared. The blond teen had a very hard day at school but none the less he was happy. Why? Because it was friday and that ment two whole days where he could put schooling and becoming a famous writer to the back of his head.

Opening the maroon door to enter the building, the blond noticed he was not the only one home. The livingroom was set up by the blond himself, a few bookshelves on either side of the heavy-armed black sofa that was found in the center of the room. Across from it was a large Tv, hooked up with a DVD player, Xbox and Wii. Between the Tv and Sofa was a circular coffee table that the two brothers offend ate dinner at, since the two didn't have a very large kitchen. Sabo chuckled as he noticed Ace dead asleep on the sofa, the man's face had fallen on to the coffee table, into some now soggy cereal he had eaten.

Suddenly, the younger teen's cellphone went off _'Yeah, when I'm at the mall, security just can't fight them off. And when I'm at the beach, I'm in a Speedo trying to tan my cheeks'_

"Ace, wake up you damn meat head." The blond ordered as he repeatedly poked the younger male with his fingers, though, to Ace, his brother's fingers felt like knifes.

"Humm?!" The raven brother asked as he shot up from his bowl, splashing milk on to the floor and table. Upon noticing that it was just the blond who had woken him up, he wiped his face. "Thanks...Narcosply, what can you do?" Ace asked nonchalantly as Sabo chuckled.

"Your phones going off." The blond said kindly, sliding off his backpack and turning on his Xbox. Yup, nothing got the weekend going like killing some pixel ass on Halo. Ace yawned and took his phone out of his pocket, not bothering to look at who was calling as he placed the electronic to his ear.

"hello?" He sleepily asked.

"Good afternoon sir, this is CPS calling." A rather business like women's voice explained.

"Oh." The raven student said indifferently as he picked at one of his toe nails. "What's CPS mean?" He asked, the blond brother turned from his game and gave Ace a confused look, clearly, he knew what CPS stood for.

"...Child Protection Serves." The women's voice said "Anyways, you and your brother's former caretaker was your grandpa, Monkey D. Garp, correct?" The freckled teen pushed his brows together in confusion.

"Yeah, why?" Ace asked.

"We'll, I'm sorry to say that Garp passed away a little over a week ago." The women informed him

"Whose calling?" Sabo whispered, sightly concerned that some government angst were going to start stalking the two.

He was ignored by his brother, who gasped. 'G-garp is dead?' Ace wondered to himself, feeling slightly sick. It wasn't as if he cared much, after all, his grandpa was getting older and the man hadn't always been the nicest of family to him and his brother. 'But that means... Luffy...' Was the teens next though. You see, there once lived three close brothers. One was Sabo, one was Ace and the last was Luffy, who was much younger than his two older brothers, around five-years-old. Neither of the brothers had seen the youngest since the boy was two when the older family members had left for college but still, they loved him a lot.

"H-How did Garp die?" At Ace's words, Sabo turned off his game and crawled on to the couch, putting his ear to the phone so that he could hear as well.

"Cancer." The women said indifferently and simply. The blond was now gasping. Their grandpa had never told them about any sickness. The two were completely taken by guilt and suprise.

"What about Luffy?" The blond teen asked and Ace repeated his words into the phone.

"That's why I'm calling." The CPS member explained, growing irritated "Luffy is fine but we have evidence that states that his grandpa has been abused him lightly within the past few years and is suffering form a bad case of Malnutrition."

"Oh god..." Ace muttered to himself, horrified while his brother bite his lip.

"Yes, it's very sad." The women noted, not sounding the slightest bit sad herself "But, do not worry, for he's being put on a special diet as we speak at the orphanage."

"Orphanage?" Sabo asked, pulling the orange cellphone out of his frozen classmates hand and putting it to his ear.

"Yes, once again, that's why I'm calling." The women said in an annoyed voice "Would you consisted taking him in. Understand, that your under no oba-"

"Of course, I mean, yes!" The top hatted male cut her off. Sabo was rarely rude but this was different, this was life changing.

"...Okay then." The women's voice growled. "In that case we'd need you to come to The Going Merry Home on E. East Blue street with in the next seven business days." And with that piece of information, the women hung up. Not bothering to answer any other questions the two teens might have had.

Ace and Sabo sat there for a few moments, facing the Tv which played an episode of Full House, though neither were paying much attention to it. No one broke the silence for a few minutes though it felt longer.

"That asshole..." The raven teen muttered under his breath "Why would he do that to Luffy?" He wondered aloud. Sure, their grandpa wasn't the nicest guy but he would never go as far as to under feed the brothers in till they starved. The man would hit them now and then but only if they had it coming.

"I'm not sure... Maybe it was his illness." The blond whispered back. Was it possible that his grandpa had gone a little nuts, knowing he was going to die and took it out on his youngest brother. "I can't image what it most have been like for those two..." He adds as an after thought.

* * *

"Come on, Luffy, please eat it?" A young women with dark green hair that went just above her shoulders pleaded. She wore a yellow kerchief around her head, an orange blouse with black sleeves and a long light blue jean skirt with orange sneakers.

"B-but I don't w-want to." A short and skinny 5-year-old said though sobs. He knew that this excuse would probably get him a fist of 'love' but he couldn't find the right words in his limited vocabulary to explain himself. He had messy unkept black hair and large brown eyes that were raining wet tears. He didn't cry much at all since his grandpa had tought him otherwise but in this one case, perhaps his granddad would have allowed him to cry. For the man was dead now and he felt very alone.

He didn't have any friends since his grandfather never took him out of the house much and he wasn't old enough to go to school yet. Their had been a few other boy his age around a store he went to many times but those boys always had made fun of him because of his clothes. For some reason, the old man had always forced him to wear two or three jackets when every he left the house, even in the summer time. Though, now he was wearing a white short-sleeved t-shirt and blue jean shorts even though he was outside his former house. All these changes, all the people who tried to shove foods down his throats and this place... he didn't like any of it!

The boy sat with the women known as Makino in a small sick bay room. The walls and flooring were white and depressing while the beds were as comfortable as sleeping in the bathtub. (1) No pictures hung on the walls, though the was one window that let the suns ray give a little light to the space.

"Please, Luffy? It would make me so happy if you tried my cooking." The women begged in a sweet mother-like voice, one that the 5-year-old had never known. He really like Makino a lot, in the week he had stayed at The Going Merry she was by far his favorite.

"It will make you happy?" The child asked, making sure he heard her right as he wiped the tears and snot away from his chubby face with the back of his hand.

"It would make me that happiest girl in the world." She chuckled and once again offered the young boy a plate of food that included Mac n' Cheese and two dinner rolls. Luffy blinked, Garp hadn't ever given him this much. The green haired women had probably messed up and somehow given him a meal for a larger person, though he wasn't about to turn down the yummyest looking food he had ever seen, and better yet, it was hand-made by his first real friend.

"Okay, I'll do it then." Luffy muttered and took the meal into his lap and started slowly eating it with the plastic folk and spoon his friend had brought him. "It's really good, you're a great cook Makino." The child snickered as he took another bite. He wasn't sure why, but seeing the growing smile on his friend's face made him over-joyed and for a moment, he forgot about his granddad.

* * *

The weekend went by slowly for the two brother's. They had spent Saturday and Sunday mopping around their small house, feeling bad for both their dead grandfather, who had raised them, yet also hating the man for what he had done to their little brother.

As Sabo picked up his blue Iphone and called a number, he couldn't help but feel nervous and anxious. The blond wasn't sure if he had made the right choice. After all, could two 19-year-old guys really be good parents and raise an abused 5-year-old all on their own? Where would they get the money to buy things they would need for the kid and where would they put it? Like a bed and clothes, hell the two men were barely making enough money as it was, the last thing they needed was another mouth to feed. As the blond though this, he hit himself in the face, that pun was not intended by any means.

Ace was looking deep into his laptop, his pink tongue sightly sticking out of his mouth in concentration as he typed in to google, _'How to raise a 5-year-old?'_ He read the random blogs and pages for as long as he could. He would be the awesomest big brother ever, way better than Sabo. Yes, the raven brother was making this into a competition of sorts. He knew that they would find a way to make everything work, after all this was Little Lu, his cute baby brother that he use to tickle for hours and hours back home. Even if they became poor, no, even if they went bankrupted it would be worth it to have his baby brother back.

As the two spent the rest of their week explaining the situation to their friends, pulling together any savings they had and talking over what they planned to do once their little brother arrived, they were sure of one thing. If Luffy came with them, he would get all the love he could ever ask for.

* * *

(1) Owch! I done this before, hurts like hell in the morning.

I was thinking about some ideas for pairing in this, I'm thinking about SaboxRobin and MarcoxAce. Anyothers that you think would be better?

_Edited On 3/4/2013 at 4:37AM for Spelling Mistakes and Other Reasons_


	2. The Baby Brother, his Name is Luffy!

**Yaay another chapter :D Wow, 7 reviews for my first chapter? ;A; you guys really know how to make a girl feel loved. **

**I love this chapter, though, the next chapter is my favorite so look forward to that :-)**

* * *

**~~~~~~~~~~Chapter Two~~~~~~~~~~**

Dragon D. Sabo, Portgas D. Ace and Monkey D. Luffy, Together at Last!

.

_~I'm smiling because you are my brother~_

_~~I'm laughing because there's nothing you can do about it!~~_

.

One week later, the two brother's found themselves pulling up to a large and rather cold, sturdy three-story building designed with the least imagination possible, a few windows here and there and a few dying flowers that had been placed in the dirt around the building as an attempt to brighten it up and make it more 'kid friendly'

As Sabo stepped out of the driver's side of his blue 4-door pick-up truck followed by the raven brother, he couldn't help but think about how many problems this would release on to his already busy life. Who knows, maybe he would get inspired and write some really amazing book that everyone would love. Then he'd get rich and could spoil his kid brother with ice cream sandwiches, artificially flavored candy canes and cheap rubber balls that break the minute you buy them. That is what little kids like, right?

"Names?" A slim women with blue eyes and glasses asked from behind a desk as the two walked inside the building. She had blond shoulder length hair that was tied tightly in to a bun. The brothers instantly recognized her voice from the phone call they had gotten.

"Dragon D. Sabo and Portgas D. Ace." The older blond brother informed the secretary "We're here for-"

"Monkey D. Luffy. Age: five and a half. Date of birth: May 5th. Hair: Short, black. Eyes: Brown." The blond women interrupted as she dug in a large cabinet of blue flies kept in a long box under her desk. Skillfully, she pulled one out with a pen and handed it to the blond brother, who blinked. 'This gal really gets down to business, eh...?'

"Fill it out." The blond brother commanded as he handed the flies and pen to Ace, who frowned.

"Why do I have to do it?" He complained and made no attempt to take the papers from his brother's awaiting hands.

"Because I'm busy." The blond said simply.

"No you're not... liar." The sightly younger brother growled while puffing out his freckled cheeks.

"Come on... I'm going to drop them if you don't take them." The blue-eyed teen announced, a little childishly but his brother often brought that part of him out.

"Go ahead, see if I care." Ace dared, crossing his arms over his chest. He hated filling papers out and refused to. The two teens stared at each other for a full minute before the blond finally decided to the drop the papers on to the dirty grey floor. Afterwards, the two continued their staring contest in till they heard footsteps approach them.

"Excuse me? The both of you are Luffy's big brothers, right?" The green-haired beauty asked. Even though the women was at least five years older than the brothers, she was still hot!

"Yes, that's me." The brothers replied at the same time, glaring at each other out of the corner of their eyes. Mikado giggled. "I really have taken a liking to Luffy and have a suggestion for you boys if you'd like to hear it?" She asked as the blond bent down and finally picked up the papers. As always, he would be forced to be responsable and fill them out.

"I'd love to hear you suggests Miss." Once again, the two brothers simultaneously answered. Ohh, they would kill each other when they got home, big time.

"Oh really?!" She asked with a grin "My husband is the principal of an elementary school not to far from here." The green haired women explained and the brothers sighed. Even though Ace had admitted to being Bi, he and his brother would stay Forever alone in till the day they died. "I noticed that Luffy should have started kindergarten a few weeks ago but never did make it..." She trailed off, probably guessing that they're grandpa had never let the poor boy join any schools.

"Oh yeah... 5-year-olds go to school, don't they?" Ace asked himself.

"Meat head." The blond muttered as Mikado continued.

"I would be his afternoon kindergartens teacher, Mrs. Mikado. I'd be delighted to have him in my class." She finished with a reassuring smile.

"Thanks a lot Mikado. I think we'll take you up on the offer sometime." The blond voiced as he shock the lady's hand.

"You two, did you fill out those forms yet? Go bring Luffy out Mikado, will you?" The secretary order from behind her desk, using the palm of her hand to push up her glasses.

"Yes, Kalifa." And with that, the green haired women left, leaving behind Sabo to hurriedly fill out a long list of papers before the scary desk woman ate his head off.

* * *

"Oh Luffy~" The green haired caretaker called as she speed walked down the long hall, trying not to bump into any other children that were passing by as she entered a door that had the number '4' written on it with a plastic number. Once inside, she grabbed a medium-sized bag that she had prepared and left next to the door earlier that day. In side the bag were some basics, such as a tooth-brush and paste, a few pieces of clothing and a few ripped stuffed animals and half-broken toys that Luffy had grown fond of back at his home with his grandpa.

Looking around the room, she realized, to her horror, that there was no 5-year-old boy in sight. Growing nervous, she frantically searched around the small room in till she discovered a small blanket covered lump on the bed. She sighed in relief and chuckled, picking the boy up in one of her arms, the bag being in her other. She was careful not to wake him as she swung him over her hip and started walking back to the main office of the building. After all, the poor boy hadn't gotten much rest in the past two weeks since he had been sobbing over that old man of his. honestly, it really pissed the green haired women off, not that the boy was crying but that he was crying over his grandfather who had treated him so wrongly. In her opinion, he did not deserve Luffy's tears.

Sabo and Ace were immediately up and crowding around the sleeping boy once the women had taken her first step back into the main office. The raven brother thought it would be hilarious if he poked the sleeping boy's chubby cheeks, but thankfully the blond had stopped him.

"He's asleep and probably really tired. Please try not to wake him." She whispered as she handed the bag to the blond. She had also been planning to hand Luffy over to Sabo, since he seemed more mature but, Ace had grabbed Luffy last-minute and now was holding the five-year-old in his arms the way he had read online how. _'Psh, I'm so awesome with kids...'_ The raven thought as the two family members headed back to the baby blue pick up truck.

The car ride home was a quite and eerie one and not just because the two were afraid that the tiniest noise would wake the five-year-old. The brothers had added someone to their family, it wasn't a pet or another roommate, no. This was much different and bigger then any of those things. Ace couldn't stop his dark eyes from staring at his baby brother in his lap that he hadn't seen in so long. He was just as cute as he remembered him, chubby cheeks, big eyes, a soft snoring sound as he slept, a lot skinner but he could fix that in time. How on earth could his grandpa had done something so heartless to this little guy? Yup, it was official, he hated Garp and Luffy was his. Sabo could get his own five-year-old, like hell he was sharing.

* * *

_Luffy was eating cereal at the wooden kitchen table while his grandpa was talking to a doctor on the phone across from him. Garp gave a loud and frustrated sigh as he hung up the cellphone and buried his hands in his face. The 3-and-a-half-year-old pulled out his napkin absent-mindedly and hadn't noticed that his cereal bowl laid on top of it. As he pulled the dish fell on to the ground, shattering and spilling milk and cereal pieces everywhere._

_There was only silence in the air in till the 3-year-old whispered 'Oops... I sworry.' The old man suddenly ripped his face away from his hands and glared at his grandson with such a cold and furious look that it made the younger male flinch. In one motion, the man was up and grasping the toddler by the shoulder, his unkept nails graining angst his soft skin._

_"Owch~ Ojīchan, that hurts!" He cried but his words were ignored as that man dragged him out of the kitchen and across the hall way, opening a white door. The 3-year-old noticed the stair way leading down to the room that he had never been in before, for he was to scared of the dark. "O-ojīchan?" The boy repeated but it was too late, for the man had pushed him forward and Luffy went tumbling down the stairs. In the background the toddler could hear the door slamming shut and a lock turning._

_The young D. whimpered in pain, his arms and legs didn't feel good but he manged to sit up and look around. Just as he thought, the room was dark and fair to scary for the boys likening, despite his love for adventure. Don't act as if you never heard the ghost stories about basements, because Luffy sure had heard those stories 100s of times from his granddad._

_"Ojīchan~ I'm Sorry... I didn't mean to, it was just an accident, I swear!" The boy cried but his pleads were unheard as only silence answered him. He sat angst the wall and brought his short knees up to his chest because in his young mind, it was the safest place to be in since the monsters couldn't see his face, they wouldn't find him. He shivered slightly, his grandpa had never done anything like this before so why was he doing it now? He decided to try to distract himself, voicing stories that he made up in his head out loud about a pirate and his crew of friends._

* * *

Luffy woke up, sweaty and wide-eyed. He looked out a half closed window, blinking. The sun had completed its tour for the day, and had now been replaced by twinkling spotlights that were very eye-catching among the velvet texture of the night sky. He noticed that he was no longer on the cheap twin-sized bed but instead was tucked in to a rather comfy queen sized bed that had fluffy black blankets that were covered with red flames. The furnishings was cheap, orange-painted objects such as a worn mustard-yellow bean-bag chair. On top of a trash covered desk laid a towering set of jet-black speakers that dirty clothes hung from. On the walls was black and yellow _'Do Not Cross'_ tape hung in the way one might have hung christmas lights. One thing was for sure, the boy had never seen a room quite like this in his short life, he was in awe.

And kind of freaked out! Hadn't he fallen asleep back at that other place? He remembered how his green haired friend had explained to him that two 'nice guys' were going to take him to their house and 'take care' of him. Was that what had happened when he fell asleep? Without knowing it, tears started to trail down his chubby cheeks and fall to the coffee-colored brown floor as he rolled off the bed.

He didn't want to leave that place and Mikado. She was his first and only friend but now she was gone and he was alone again! The boy was unaware that deep inside him, he was scared. Scared that he wouldn't be feed again and would be hit if he did something wrong. Despite his hidden fears, he couldn't bring himself to go back at bed. He wanted comfort from the nightmare like any 5-year-old would.

He stood on his tippy toes as he reached for the door-knob and attempted to open the tall door that could accommodate a family of giraffes. After a few minutes of struggling, he manged to free himself from the room and very secret spy like, started to creep down the dark hall ways. Ironically, he didn't fear the dark like most children his age would, after all, he had spent a lot of time in the dark and grew to realize that it wasn't all that bad. He even thought about making the monsters that lived in the dark his friends a few times but never actually tried for fear that they would eat him. He came to the end of hall to see a living room and a strong raven-haired man sleeping on the sofa. One of his tan arms were thrown over his dark eyes while one of his feet rested on the floor, since his whole body was a little taller than the sofa.

Luffy stared from his hiding spot beside a large TV, his brown eyes wide as the man suddenly rolled off the thin couch and landed on the coffee-colored floor, waking up with a cry of surprise.

"Ah, Fuck..." The freckled teen muttered. Deciding that standing up and placing himself back on the sofa would be too much work, the 2nd D. brother simply moved his pillow to the floor, choosing to sleep there instead.

_'He said a bad word...'_ The 5-year-old thought as he arrived at the conclusion that now would be a good time to leave, since he knew that people weren't in a good mood when they said bad words.

* * *

The next room the raven haired boy ended up in was a neat and rather professional looking room that was a lot larger than the child's older rooms. The walls were baby blue and lined with tall book shelves that were each stocked of thick paper back books. Next to a built-in closet was a tall sliver desk with a long lamp, black spinning chair and computer. The boy heard loud snoring sounds coming from the corner of the room on a queen-sized bed with blue blankets that were poke-a-dotted with white circulars.

Curious, the boy approached the mattress and stood on his small tippy toes, attempting to see whoever it was that was sleeping. It was a man, about the same age as the other one but with blonde hair and a missing tooth. If the 5-year-old squeezed his eyes really tightly, the man sort of looked like Mikado, which was a huge comfort to the boy. It was at that moment that the boy suddenly realized how tired he was and was not surprised when a narcolepsy attack hit him without warning.

* * *

Edited 3/6/2013 at 9:01 AM for Spelling mistakes and other reasons


	3. Sabo and Ace, Please Join our family!

**Yaay~ Love this chapter. It's a little on the short side around 2,500 words but the next chapter is a lot longer and makes up for it, I promise. **

* * *

**~~~Chapter Three~~~**

_Please... Be part of our family!_

_._

_Families are like Brownies:_

_ Mostly sweet with a few nuts_

.

Sabo thought that lights were annoying as hell! He always hated how his grandpa would wake him up when he was a young kid in the mornings by turning on all the lights without any warning, thus ensuring that his pupils got fully dilated. He found the _'let there be light'_ joke over used and stupid. Though, what the teen really hated about lights was that they woke him up every time he wanted more sleep. It was Saturday for goodness sake, couldn't the writer just have a few more minutes of sleep? No, some stupid meat head, also known as Ace, had to shine some flashlight in his eyes.

A few moments later, Sabo manged to open his blue eyes to realize that the light was not coming from his stupid brother but instead was strumming in from his window, even know, the window was closed and covered with a dark purple sheet. He gave an annoyed groan before he forced his tired body up and in to a sitting position. He wasn't wearing anything but baby blue night pants , since he found it to be a pain in the ass to buy and clean pajamas.

He threw his legs over the side of the bed one by one, wondering what he could make for breakfast that didn't involve cooking, since neither of the brothers could cook well. They had run out of milk last night, since the blond had a wired habit of drinking milk like a starved animal when ever he became nervous. No milk ment no cereal, damn. He could eat some fruit or something. As he prepared to stand up, his toes came across a fuzzy object shaped like a head. He chuckled and patted the cat between his none existing ears with the sole of his foot.

"Nice cat." He muttered. It was only in till he was half way out of his bedroom door did he realize something. _'We don't have a cat...'_ With that thought in mind, he turned around and looked down at his baby brother. At that moment, his younger brother came bursting into the bedroom, looking panicked with a frantic look in his black oreo-like eyes.

"I LOST HIM!" Ace screamed, despite Sabo being relatively close to him. "LUFFY, HE'S JUST GONE! I SWEAR HE WAS IN MY ROOM AND EVERYTHING!" He yelled. Luffy woke up at the moment, eyes wide like a deer caught in head lights. "DO YOU THINK HE RAN AWAY OR SOMETHING? DAMN IT! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?!" He continued to scream his lungs out as the blond brother tried to calm him down by placing a reassuring hand of his shoulder. Slowly, as if not to draw attention to himself, Luffy crawled under the bed, he knew that monsters lived under there but it was sunny out, meaning they wouldn't attack him.

"Relax you meat head... Did you ever think to check my room?" The blond asked, eyebrow twitching in irritation.

"... We'll.. no, but why would I? Kids would wanna go somewhere funner then this dump.." The freckled teen muttered, feeling a tad bit dumb.

"First thing first," The older male announced, sticking up one of his slender fingers " It's 'Funnier'. 'Funner' is not a word. Next, your room is a dump, not mine."

"Damn it, Sabo! That doesn't matter, where's my little brother at?!" Ace growled, growing angrier then he already was. Luffy crawled as far under the bed as he could, he wasn't sure who the freckled teen was, but he was scary. Almost as scary as his grandpa could be.

"He just crawled under my bed." The older brother said matter of factly, as always, he had seen everything with his blue hawk-like eyes, he always did.

"Why didn't you just say that in the first place?" The younger brother mutter, getting down on his hands and knees to look under the bed. "Luffy~ Come give big brother Ace a hug~." He male gushed, effectively freaking out the younger boy, who decided it would be best not to move or say anything. He would probably forget about his presents in a few minutes anyways, like a dinosaur.

"He's not coming out..." The raven teen muttered, causing the blond to sigh.

"Did Ace scare you, Luffy?" The blue-eyed teen asked, getting on his knees to make eye contract with the 5-year-old, who seemed to be trying to fade into the darkness. "I'm sorry about -"

"I DIDN'T SCARE HIM!" The freckled teen hissed at the blond, interrupting him. "Did I, Luffy~?" He asked in that sweet voice that grown women used when they talked to their beloved over-weight cats. It was almost comical, the way both brothers were down on all fours, pushing their heads under the bed as an attempt see the 5-year-old who was sitting criss-cross apple sauce style at the far end of the mattress.

"Umm..." The boy muttered uncomfortably, he hadn't ever been in a situation like this before and was feeling sightly overwhelmed by it all.

"Just be quite, Ace. Try to put yourself in his shoes." Sabo voiced, causing the younger teen to puff out his freckled cheeks in annoyance. "My name is Sabo, I'm 20-years-old and going to write a great book someday. My favorite color in blue and I like milk, villan cupcakes and writing." He explained in a kind voice. The freckled teen nodded, understanding what his wise older brother was trying to do.

"I'm Ace, I'm 19-years-old and I wanna be a pyrotechnic, which means I get to play with fireworks and blow things up. I like orange and black. I like partying and beer." The 19-year-old explained, almost too honestly. The blond glared at his brother. _'Beer, really? We'll I doubt he knows what that is...'_

"I'm Luffy..." The boy mumbled awkwardly. "I'm five." The child spoke, a little proudly as he lifted up his hand, stretching out his five small fingers to prove his point. "I wanna be a pirate when I grow up... I like red... and ... I like meat."

"Hi. Nice to met yeah." The future pyrotechnic greeted with a friendly wave.

"Hey Luffy, you may not remember since you were so young, but were your big brothers." The blond boy explained, causing the 5-year-old to remember something. Hot sticky summer days spent with a freckled raven teen who would tickle him in till he couldn't breath and a blond boy with blue eyes that would spend rainy nights reading to him so that he would grow distracted and wouldn't cry at the storm. Are these the same people, the same people who he cried for when they left? Part of him wanted to run up and hug them while another part of the 5-year-old wanted to yell at the teens. Though, the biggest part of him won over those two, he didn't trust these men.

"Please, be part of our family?" Both of the D. brothers asked at the same time, a sight look of determination in the two's eyes. The blond reached a palm under the mattress so that the 5-year-old could choice rather to shake it or not. Luffy scanned his hand for a few seconds with his brown eyes. _'Family?'_ he thought, remembering the times his grandpa had yelled at him, swearing that the stupid boy couldn't be part of his blood line, but was family always about blood? From what the boy had seen in his life it was. Though, now he found himself wondering if perhaps, family was about the people who wanted and needed you in their life. He easily got confused and his face went red as he thought, forgetting to breath. Well, you know what they say, when nothing looks right go left.

"Okay." He softly whispered and placed his palm on top of the blond brother's.

* * *

The blond brother sweat dropped while the raven one gasped, pleasantly surprised. About half an hour had passed since this morning and we now found the three males sitting around the black coffee table having breakfast. Ace had chosen to eat some packaged junk food that they had on hand, such as chips, twines and dry lucky charms while Sabo had picked a large red apple and some goldfish. As for Luffy? Well...

"You know, that can't be very heathy..." The blond muttered in disgust.

"nonsense, I use to eat them like that to when I was his age." The raven said nonchalantly, motioning for his youngest brother to continue eating his uncooked hotdog. **(1)**

"But... he could get worms or something..." The blond voiced, motioning for the 5-year-old to stop eating, which he did.

"Look Sabo," The freckled teen growled, growing annoyed "Hot dogs are pre-cooked before they're packaged. Keep eating Luffy." The teen ordered and the youngest D. did not dare to disobey. Suddenly, his blond brother ripped the hotdog package out of his small sun-kissed hands. He frowned, this was getting confusing.

"According to pediatric association, _'do not give uncooked hot dogs to kids'_" The blond quoted from a tag on the wieners.  
And I bet they're not kidding around, Dude!" The blond said matter of factly, shoving the wrapper in to the other boys face so he could look. Meanwhile, Luffy simply watched, blinking his chocolate-brown eyes now and then.

"I SEE IT!" The black-eyed teen shouted, pushing the blue-eyed man out of his face "That's just an old wives' tale, besides, Luffy is a lot stronger than most kids his age! He can handle a wieners, isn't that right, Lu?" He asked. The 5-year-old didn't answer for a few seconds.

"...I eaten bugs before? Is that good?" The 5-year-old muttered, hoping that he had some how impressed his new family.

"See, Sabo?! Bugs! He can handle a hot dog!" The freckled teen pouted, handing the wrapped one and half nibbled hot dog that was inside of it back to his younger brother, who hesitatingly took it.

"Okay, first thing first," The blond listed, numbering off on his fingers. Ace rolled his black eyes, he hated when the blond did this, it annoyed him to no ends! "There called a Frankfurter or franks, not _'hot dogs'_. A hotdog describes a sandwich. Oh, and the word _'wiener'_ is actually describing a 'wienerwurst' or a Vienna sausage..." The blond explained, as a writer, he hated grammar mistakes. The 19-year-old was chuckling because his brother had said the word _'wiener'_ with a straight face twice.

"Next, that's not good Luffy, try not to eat bugs anymore, you don't know where then been..." The blond explained, a sightly disgusted look on his features.

The 5-year-old nodded, it wasn't like he had a choice to eat bugs or not and he did know where they been, crawling around his grandpa's basement with the monsters... In the young boy's mind, the insects were the monster's pet and since he ate them... monsters were after him. **(2)**

"Lastly, I taken health class, Ace, I know how feed a kid!" The blond argued and Luffy was growing tired of it. He didn't like when people yelled, in fact, yelling scared him more than monsters... only a little.

"Yeah, well, I taken health class three times, so... ha!" The future pyrotechnic laughed.

"Yeah? Did you ever pass?! Huh?!" The blond yelled.

"I'm not really that hungry anymore..." The young raven spoke in a timed voice, for he had always been tought to only speck when spoken to.

"Eat." The two brothers demanded. The blond pushing a red apple closer to him while the freckled one pushed some lucky charms his way.

"Umm... Okay..." The brown-eyed boy whispered, taking the fruit and dried cereal even thought he really was full.

"So, Luffy, where do you wanna go?" The writer asked, grinning at the small boy who turned his head in confusion.

"Yeah, we were planing to buy you some things on Sunday and go somewhere fun, what do you say?" The 19-year-old asked, enjoying the change of topic.

"I-um..." Luffy mumbled trying to think of places he had gone before that where fun... none.

"Theres a park, movie theater, zoo, beach and a lot of other really neat places close to this apartment. Go ahead and pick one." The blue-eyed man encouraged. The only one of those places that the boy recognized was the park. He remembered a certain grassy park across the way from his old house but his grandpa never allowed him to go, saying that stupid people were not allowed to go to parks... had he gotten smarter since then? Awesome!

"Park..." The boy answered timidly as the blond ruffed his raven locks while the raven brother pouted. Clearly jealous.

"Park it is."

* * *

**1:** Anyone else do that? Just me? I ate a lot of wired crap when I was young, from bath soap to wallpaper.

**2:** Yes, Luffy has a huge fear of monster's don't worry, we'll get to it.

**Note**: You may have noticed that I added some things to Sabo's traits, such as his favorite foods and drinks as well as his hate for wrongly used words. This is because I didn't want Ace to out shine Sabo since I know that I could easily do that.

_Next time:_ The three go shopping but what happens when Luffy disappears and finds himself a new friend who has a talent for stealing and a love for oranges?


	4. My name's Nami, lets steal some shit!

**Hey, sorry it took so long. haha I love this chapter! Tell me how I did with how everyone acts, okay? I still wanted to make everyone act like their older self but with a few kid like things.**

**My name's Nami, lets steal some shit!**

_chapter four_

.

_A real friend is someone who walks in _

_when the rest of the world walks out._

.

Luffy wore one of his big brother's tightest blue t-shirts, it fell to his knees, making it look as if he was wearing a blue night-gown. Not that he minded, he honestly didn't care what he wore. Besides, the shirt hides the fact that he was 15 lbs, under weight, something he was always shy about. He looked at the tan hand that was tightly holding his right hand, belonging to his oldest brother, Sabo, who looked focused as he made his way down aisles. He looked at the hand holding his left hand, belonging to his other brother, Ace, who was nonchalantly scanning the Buggy-Mart with his black eyes as he rolled a sliver shopping cart.

Bright lights and squeaky wheels of the carts that rolled by aisle after aisle of shelves stocked with foods and flavours sense and savours, the sound of heavy pounding feet on marble floors as folks continued their never-ending quest to find whatever it was that was written on their shopping list. It was at that moment where the three entered and a magical wind blew Luffy's locks then did the boy realize, this was a place of adventure.

At least, it was for him. He had been to stores now and then but not one like this, this store was huge and sold many other things besides food. The 5-year-old had decided that the moment his brothers let go of his hands, he would make a run for it, no matter the beating he would get afterwards, and it will be worth it. Maybe if he was lucky, he could go unnoticed and avoid the beating all together, but that was wishful thinking. For an abused little boy, he proved to very mischievous and brave.

"Right then, let's start with some school supplies." The blond writer declared, mostly to himself as he led the group of three down an aisle labelled '3'. A bright green colored poster hung on the wall, reading 'Back to school', since the schools in Water Seven had started only a few weeks ago, everything was on sale, it was the perfect timing if you asked the blond D. brother. "Alright, Ace, you pick out a backpack with Luffy, I'll get the three-ring binder and crayons." The blond ordered, taking the cart and letting go of the 5-year-old's hand.

"Yes sir, captain A-s-s -h-o-l-e." The freckled teen spelt out, careful to watch his language around his youngest brother. Luffy's coconut brown eyes glanced over the two striped vertical bottom rows, since those were the only ones he was tall enough to see. Different colored bags lined the shelves, each ranging in sizes and types, such as brown over-the-shoulder bags to pink hello kitty rollie ones. "You like red, right? What do you think about this one?" Ace questioned, remembering that he had read online that it was very important to ask the child's opinion.

"...Yeah, I like the sunflower." The small boy mumbled as the older let go of his hand and picked up the red over-the-should bag with a lion's head on it.

"Oi, Lu, it's clearly a Lion's head...Luffy?" The raven blinked... 'Oh fuck! You're kidding me, I wasn't watching him for two seconds... literally! Fuck my life!'

"Move it, Kid" a typical male shopper barked as he pushed his potatoes chip and soda bottle filled cart around the small boy, who muttered up an _'excuse me'_ as he ran as fast as his little legs to carry him. He couldn't remember such a time in his short life where he felt so free and excited.

Slowly, Luffy started to realize that each aisle had different things on them that somehow went together, like bath soap and toilet paper on aisle number three, or chips and cheese crackers on aisle six. Thought, one aisle stood out among all as the little boy's favorite.

The shopping aisle had large glass refrigerators on either side of him, each full of frozen veggies, pizzas and other meals. The brown-eyed boy had always loved the cold, for it was the one time he could leave the house with all his jackets on and no one would gave him a second look! The walkway was clear besides a few shoppers and a yellow bucket and mop. Curious about how cold it would be, he opened one of the two dozen refrigerators, gaping in awe as he climbed in to it.

He slipped his shoes half-way off, allowing the feeling of frozen packages to seep though his toes, causing him to giggle and fog up the glass door. As other shoppers pushed by, he would rub his chubby face angst the glass, making wired and funny faces at the customers, who would chuckled and point at him, amused. The raven grinned and snickered for the first time in what felt like years.

Interrupting his laughter, a short orange-haired girl suddenly swung open the glass door he had leaned on, causing him to fall out of the fridge and land face first on the white marble flooring. The girl couldn't be that much older than himself. She had shoulder-length orange hair and dark red eyes. Her choice of clothing was a green gown that hung off her pale shoulders by two yellow straps. In her hands was an open bag of tangerine candy.

"Hi! I'm Lu-" The 5-year-old greeted, pulling his body into a sitting position as he waved.

"Shut up and take these!" The orange headed girl requested, throwing the candies into the innocent boy's lap before running as fast as she could down and out of the frozen area. The brown-eyed boy frowned and crossed his short arms across his chest. That had been the first girl his age he had ever seen... she seemed mean and confusing.

"Hey! There are those candies the kid stole, right there!" A worker wearing a blue uniform exclaimed. The man was a skinny and lanky-looking young man with light blond hair shaped like an oval on top of his head with a name tag reading 'Helmeppo'. Before Luffy could continue pondering about how much he wanted friends, the blond man grabbed him from behind and lifted him up. If it was one thing that Luffy hated, it was getting carried without warning, it always surprised him.

"Hey! Let go of me!" Luffy shrieked, remembering how his grandpa had explained to him that if anyone besides the old man or someone he could trust tried to pick him up that he should scream _'rape'_ and _'help me'._

"I don't think so, candy theft. I'll make sure this is the last time you ever steal anything!" Helmeppo informed, confusing the raven who wriggled and struggled in his grip.

"Steal? I didn't take anything!" The 5-year-old shouted, knowing it wouldn't make any difference. He had always been blamed for things he didn't do and he hated it!

"Nice try kid, your coming with me." The blond, who couldn't be older the 16-years-old said, throwing the boy over his shoulder and preparing to exit the section. Luffy didn't want to have to do this but the man gave him no chose.

"RAPE, RAPE! HELP ME!~" He wailed at the top of his lungs, having no idea of what he words meant. To say that the blond was caught off guard would be an understatement. His grip loosened and he accidentally stumbled in to the janitor's yellow mop bucket, causing him to fall over and release the kid, water and soap splashing on to him and his blonde hair. Meanwhile, anyone who heard the child's cry came rushing to the frozen section of the store. Taking his opportunity at escape, Luffy exited the area.

"Did you hear something?" The blonde whispered to himself. "Hey, have you seen my little brother? He has black hair, brown eyes, rather short" The blond brother questioned a small, timid, chubby boy with pink hair and round-frame glasses. Due to his blue apron and name tag reading 'Coby', he seemed to work at the store.

"No, I'm sorry sir, I haven't. Though, I'll make sure to keep an eye out for him." The pink headed boy apologized in a regretful and honest voice.

"Damn it, Sabo!" Ace, who was red in his freckled face from running laps around the huge store called, as he entered the clothing center of the store. He leaned on a clothing rack, huffing and puffing, as the pink haired boy walked away. "I looked everywhere! I couldn't find him! W-what if he-" The freckled teen was about to voice his concern but was interrupted.

"Hey, it will be okay Ace. He probably just wandered off." The blond comforted the raven, patting his brother's shoulder "He kind of acts like you when you we were young..." he mutters as he remembers how his brother had dragged his ass around a shopping mall, trying to find some kool aid.

"B-but what if he got taken!? H-he's a cute little kid, I bet a lot of old men would like to -" The young teen stopped himself from continuing, the thought too painful. "WE HAVE TO FIND HIM!" Ace snarled into his brother's face, spraying spit on to his cheeks. Ace hated the thought, the thought that he'd lost his little brother after two days of having him.

"Ace! Sabo!" A familiar women's voice called from the left of the boys. As she approached one could see that she was an average-sized women with light blue curly hair and tanned skin. Her right arm and chest were heavily tattooed and wore a light shade of lip-stick. Her clothing consisted of a green sleeveless button-up shirt and blue trousers with purple sandals. "Have you seen Nami around?" she asked.

"Nojiko, you mean your little sister?" Sabo questioned, his blond brow twitching in annoyances. He didn't know much about Nami but knew that she had a way of finding trouble and if that was that case, there was no doubt that she would find Luffy.

"NOJIKO! LUFFY'S GONE MISSING!~" Ace proclaimed, now in the blue-haired girl's face, who blinked.

"Who?" She asked indifferently before she remembered the blond brother calling her a few days ago, telling her about how some little brother would be staying with them. Slowly, she came to the same conclusion that the top hated teen had. "...You're kidding me... Okay, I got a plan."

Our favorite five-year-old was trotting around the women's clothing section of the store. He pretended he was a pirate as he stuck a white double D bra around his chubby face, acting as if it was a crown. He was happily searching for buried treasure when that same orange haired girl suddenly popped out of a circular clothing racket.

"So, your pretty fast on your feet, even know you so small?" She inquired with a sly grin, acting sweeter than the last time they had met. Luffy, being as innocent and naive as he was, smiled back, hoping for a friend.

"Wanna play pirate with me? I'm the captain but you can be the navigator if you want?" He declared, offering another double D bra to the orange haired girl, who raised her thin eyebrow in confusion.

"No way! You look stupid." Nami teased, though Luffy looked unaffected by the insult. "I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to team up, I could use someone like you, we could steal any and everything together." She remarked, the boy could almost see money signs forming in her eyes. He frowned.

"My grandpa wouldn't feed me for a month if I did that." He explained in a serious voice.

"What?!" The girl gasped, backing up a little. She decided that the boy most have had a dry sense of humour and had been joking, at least she hoped. Suddenly, an idea came to her. "Okay, I'll play pirate with you. I'm Nami." She mused sweetly inducing herself as she grabbed the bra out of the boy's awaiting hand and tied it around her forehead, causing her hair to puff out slightly.

"Yay! I'm Luffy, nice to meet yeah!" The 5-year-old shrilled.

"Yeah... Hey, you know what pirates do?" The 6-year-old questioned, a sly grin playing at her lips "They steal shiny stuff." She confessed to the brown-eyed boy who was fiddling with his bra.

"Really?" The brown-eyed male asked "Oh yeah! Pirates do steal stuff!" He remembered.

"Yeaaaa~ they do, so, if you wanna be a real pirate, your follow me," The orange headed female convinced, when Luffy looked a little unsure, she added "Captain." The boy grinned and nodded.

"You're looking for that little guy with black hair and brown eyes?" The sudden question caught Ace of guard. The three One Piece Academy students had quickly formed a plan, each would search a different part of the store and call each other if they found the two rug rats. The freckled teen was now searching the frozen section of the store.

"Yeah! You seen him?!" He required, turning around and facing a depressed and sad-looking blond man who was an employee at the shop. The raven brother looked overjoyed to learn some new information on his youngest brother, after all he was still convinced that some random man was going to rape him, ha! _'I'm so silly... No one is going to do that_.' He thought to himself.

"Yes I have, he was here a few minutes ago, went that way." The blond man with the named tag 'Helmeppo' replied, pointing left. Just as the older brother was about to leave, he added "No matter what he tells you, I didn't rape him." He mentioned. The 19-year-old suddenly turned around, balancing on the heels of his black boots as he sent a death glare towards the man, a certain fire in his eyes that only he could pull off.

"You raped my brother?" He hissed, taking a few steps towards the shaking man "I'LL KILL YOU!"

... Let's just say, the blond decided to quit his job after that day, not that anyone could blame him.

Luffy gaped like a fish as he attempted to take in the aisle that he and his navigator were standing in the center of. Forget the frozen aisle, this was his new favorite. The space was full of toys, to the point of it almost being crowded. They were organized in some random ordered that no one knew; kites, sleds, and flying army men in one section, blue balls and robots in another. What really caught his attention though, was a plush telescope located high up on the top shelve, sadly, he could never reach it.

"You like that?" The orange headed girl addressed, pointing up at the plush pirate item.

"Yeah, I mean, every pirate needs a telescope!" He explained, discovering that he had a much easier time speaking with people his own age instead of grown up's. This was due to his grandpa who had given the boy the knowledge that folks older than him, especially men, are allowed to hit him, where as someone his age was not, though he didn't realize that fact.

"Get on your knees then." The navigator ordered. Confused, the boy blinked. "I'm taller, so I'll stand on your back. That way, I'll be tall enough to reach it for you. Get it?" She pointed out, growing tired of how stupid her new 'captain' was. Speaking of captain, he nodded and grinned while getting down on all fours. Slowly, watching her step, she climbed on to the brown-eyed boy's back, reaching her hands up as high as the 3'7 girl could. When the store manager abruptly lifted her off the boy and into the air.

"Nami, or as I like to call, cat thief. How many times have I told you that you're banned from the buggy mart?!" The man interrogated. He had a slim, yet muscular body and was a blue-haired man with an appearance resembling that of a clown, he even had a large red nose!

"Oh. It's you." The orange haired girl announced indifferently, frowning as she hung in the air. Clearly, the two knew each other in the past.

"Let her go! You big red nose!" Luffy, who had realized what was happening, demanded as he attempted to punch the man's leg. This only resulted in him getting picked up by the back of his big brother's blue shirt.

"What did you say, squat?" The clown man asked, glaring at the boy with a look similar to that of his grandfather's, Luffy didn't answer. The blue haired man started walking towards the front desk of the market while the orange headed struggled and wiggled in his tight grip.

"Do something you idiot!" Nami growled at the raven boy, who shrugged. He was repaired for a beating now that he had been caught and didn't se the point in trying to avoid it. He really just wanted to get back to his brothers now, he honestly was starting to miss them. Even if they did act funny and fight a lot, it amused him somewhat.

"Grr, you're useless! I swear!" The 6-year-old hissed as she swung back her leg as hard as she could, smashing her tennis shoes into the clown's balls. The man did what any man would, he screamed and dropped the kids. Nami pulled on Luffy's wrist, leading him down the a mini hall full of children's shoes.

"Wow! Your strong! How'd you do that?" The sun kissed boy wondered aloud before receiving a rather hard punch in the center of his chubby skull. "Ow! I thought that only men were allowed to hit me?!" He asked, confused.

"Just what's that suppose to mean?!" She barked, slightly horrified before sighing "Anyways, over the years of robbing places I learn a few things. It's not that I'm strong, I just know where to hit people." She explained. "You're too young to understand."

"Oh. Still, Nami, that was pretty cool!" He praised, rubbing his head wound.

"Wasn't it?" She acknowledged, proud of herself.

"I guess that depends on what you think 'cool' is." A new, female voice announced as the women grabbed the two, rather roughly, sticking both kids under each of her tan arms.

"N-Nojiko!" The orange haired girl stuttered, growing pale.

"Hi." The 5-year-old greeted as the blue-haired girl took out her cell phone. She puffed out her cheeks.

"Hello, Luffy. You do realize how much your brother's have been worried about you, right?" She asked nonchalantly as she waited for someone to pick up.

The 5-year-old blinked. 'They're worried for me?' He wondered to himself. He was unsure why, but for some reason he felt happy at the women's words. He'd never been missed before.

"Yeah, I got them both... No he's not hurt you idiot. I do have a question, thought... Why's he wearing a dress?... I see?" The blue haired women talked into her cellphone to the brothers on a three-way call. Meanwhile, the brothers were both running as fast as they could over to the shoe suction, ignoring the clown man wailing on the floor.


	5. The name's Zoro, I'll kick your ass!

**Next chapter :D Thanks for your reviews ;A; You can thanks Portgas D. Paula, who beta read this. Without her, it would have taken a lot longer to publish.**

* * *

**The name's Zoro, I'll kick your ass!**

.

Be strong when you are weak.

Brave, when you are scared

and humble, when you are victorious!

.

Luffy was buckled into a red, monkey decorated car seat in the back of his big brother's four-door pick-up truck. Sabo kept the car's speed at a steady sixty, allowing the boy to gawk out his window as other vehicles, power line poles and small buildings flashed past him in a blur of light. The motor humming and the tires rolling were the only sounds to be heard. Before leaving the store, the manger had pulled Sabo and Ace over and told them that Luffy and Nami had attempted to steal hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise from their market. Well, the older brother was sure that the price was exaggerated, but he wasn't sure if his baby brother was innocent or not. He expertly knew that stealing was a hard habit to cut and knew it had to be done at a young age.

"So...Stealing." He muttered awkwardly, gaining the 5-year-old's attention. Since, the boy had been fussing with his car seat belt, which may or may not have been too tight around him.

"Sabo, come on-" The freckled teen started, knowing where this was going.

"Stealing isn't good, you hear me Luffy?" The blond asked firmly. He didn't want to treat his little brother differently because of his past, as it wasn't fair to the boy, yet at the same time a part of him just didn't want to say anything, scared that he might make his little brother's case worse than it already was. He inwardly sighed. Sometimes, being the older, better looking and more responsible brother sucked balls.

Luffy didn't respond. He wasn't sure how to. What was the blond talking about? Did he take something by mistake? If he did, then why wasn't he hitting him? Part of him was confused, but glad that he wasn't, while another part of him found that the disappointed and disapproving face the blond was making to be worse than going hungry. He missed Makadio, and playing pirate with Nami. He was also a little shocked from getting picked up by so many different people at the store, as he didn't particularly like being lifted without warning. What a day! Though he couldn't deny that he had fun...

"Luffy-" The blond brother called, trying to regain his attention when he was interrupted.

"You said you liked the park, right?" Ace questioned, switching the topic. Unlike his older brother, he had faith in his younger brother and knew Nami well. If he had to guess, he would say that the orange haired girl took advantage of his little brother and used him as a decoy.

"Yeah..." Luffy mumbled in to his small hands, still uncomfortable.

"Then let's go to the one a few blocks away, what's it called, Shimot, Motsuki?" The raven wondered aloud, partially begging for his blond brother to correct him and give him the proper name.

"Its called Shimotsuki park... meat head."

* * *

As the blond brother unbuckled the sightly wiggling and curious looking 5-year-old from his car seat, he could hear the sounds of a group of children playing tag, running around and laughing, just like children should. None of an adult's worries crossed their minds, as they only wondered how to capture their friends. He could only hope that Luffy would grow up okay and learn that not everyone is trying to hurt him.

"You can go have fun but stay within our line of sight. Ace and I will be right there." The big brother explained, pointing to a blue bench off the side of the sand box. "Uh, by the way, I didn't mean to be mean back in the car, okay?" The blond muttered while rubbing the back of his neck, unsure about why he was apologizing. He just felt as if he should.

"It's okay." The 5-year-old replied, coming up with some half decent grin to show the man, who looked a little caught off guard, but smiled back none the less. Luffy skipped past him, growing curious about the colorful playground equipment that still looked fresh and bright, despite the years of wear and endless use from other kids.

He started his adventure by going on the red colored part of a multiple-colored merry-go-round, and attempting to spin as hard as he could, thus resulting in him falling off and landing on the grass, unhurt. After recovering, he climbed to the top of the jungle Jim, and enjoyed the view of the grassy summer park. Though, eventually, even that got boring.

He wandered across the play area in search of something new that wasn't very popular, since many other children were occupying the other toys, such as the super long orange slide, and swing set. It was during the moment when he was about to give up on his search that he found his dream playground equipment. A high, long pair of blue metal monkey bars that screamed _'Luffy~ Come play with me~'_ The best part? No one was interested in them, meaning he got to use them for as long as he wanted to!

It took the five-year-old a few minutes to figure out how the metal bars worked. He discovered that all he needed to do was to climb the small ladder on one end to get him up, and then climb across the 'sky ladder' as he called it, to get to the other side. Little did the boy know that two certain big brothers were chuckling at his cute antics, as he slowly made his way across for the first time. Quickly, he grew accustomed to the bars, and climbing them became second nature for the boy.

"Are you done yet?" A sightly annoyed male voice barked from behind the brown-eyed boy, who was surprised that anyone was waiting for him. He let go of the bars and landed on the blue padded playground flooring. He grinned up at the boy, who was at least three years older than himself. The boy was of average size, but rather muscular with lightly tanned skin. He carried a wooden sword that was bundled up in a green haramaki over his right hip. Besides that, he had a piece of grass in his mouth, and wore dark green karate robes. In other words, he looked like your stereotypical playground bully. You know, minus the green hair.

"Oh, I didn't see you there." Luffy apologized, walking towards the boy. "I'm Luffy! After you're done playing on the monkey bars, let's go to the swings. I don't know how to use them so you could show me?" He asked innocently, grinning.

"I'm not surprised you didn't see me, after all your about two feet tall..." The green headed boy teased "As for your request, no. I work alone." The moss-headed boy explained, climbing on the monkey bars. What he didn't expect, was for the 5-year-old to follow him closely, walking along the ground as he claimed.

"Wow! You work? What do you do?" The curious boy asked loudly, causing the moss head to look down with his green eyes, staring at the other male.

"Well no, I just meant that I don't like weaklings like you." Zoro simply said.

"I'm not weak!" The boy protested, with a quizzical look on his chubby face.

"Yes, you are." The green headed kid spoke firmly, dropping down from the bars to look into the other boy's face.

"Are not!" The raven denied just as firmly, puffing his small chest out trying to look stronger.

"Are too!" Zoro growled.

"Are not!" The smaller insisted.

"Are too!" The moss head hissed, frowning. This guy was annoying!

"Are not!" Luffy continued, standing on his toes in a sad attempt to make himself look taller.

"Are too!" The older boy repeated. He suddenly smirked "How about you prove it, then?" He asked with an arrogant smile on his tan face, pulling the piece of grass out of his mouth, tossing it the to the ground, and stepping on it with his foot as if it was a cigarette.

"Oh? Okay, how are we gonna -" Luffy was interrupted by a small, yet strong fist hitting him in the cheek. The impact tossed his small body to the ground.

* * *

"Whoa, that kid just punched Luffy!" The blond brother said, as he prepared to stand up, when a sun-kissed hand suddenly pushed him down.

"Don't worry Sabo, I got this." Ace said smugly, enjoying the look of bewilderment that flashed in his brother's blue eyes. He nonchalantly walked by a group of children to his little brother and moss-headed bully, his hands in the pockets of his black shorts. He did not like what he saw. The 5-year-old boy was on the ground, staring up at Zoro, who looked to be talking about how annoying he was. As he approached the scene, he got down on his knees, coming into eye contact with both children, who looked at him with questioning looks on their faces.

"Now, Luffy," The big brother stated, gaining the boy's attention "When another guy hits you, you don't just stand there and take it." He explained. Zoro raised an eyebrow. "You hit them back **AS HARD AS YOU CAN**!" He shouted, trying to get his point across.

"Wait, what?" Zoro asked bewildered, only having time to mutter those two words before the brown-eyed boy caught him off guard with an uppercut, using his short size to his advantage. The moss headed boy fell backwards.

"Like that, Ace?!" The boy shouted his question, caught up in the heat of moment.

"Yes, just like that, little bro!" Ace cheered, as other children started to form a crowd around the two, shouting _'Fight! Fight! Fight!'_

"Why you-" Zoro muttered, standing up. He dusted himself off, before screaming a battle cry, and throwing another punch at Luffy, which hit. Unlike last time, he didn't fall but wobbled over a bit before jumping onto the other boy, while pulling at his green hair.

"Kick his as- I mean butt, Luffy!" The raven brother's shouts could be heard from the side. The teen would be lying if he said that he wasn't proud. Where had his little brother learned to throw a punch like that?

The two boys were now neck to neck with each other, both rolling around the blue rubbery floor, pulling hair, biting and throwing weak punches. Sadly, it seemed that the 5-year-old was losing, but at least he was giving the 7-year-old a real run for his money!

"This isn't cute at all!" A girl, looking around 12-years-old raged, stomping between the rooting kids to the fight. She had big, round black eyes. Her hair was a light pink color, and was kept in two very long pig tails. Her choice of clothing was inspired by Gothic Lolita style, with a black, white and bright red dress. "Didn't dad tell you more fighting, Zoro? Or he's gonna take away your sword." Her words caught the moss-headed male's attention. He stood up from his spot on Luffy's chest.

"He won't know unless you tell him." He stated matter-of-factly.

"Which is why I'm gonna! Come on, were going home!" She growled, grabbing the green-haired boy's hand, much to his dislike. At that moment, the blond brother seemed to be making his way between the children. "As for you!" The pink headed girl yelled, pointing at Ace.

"You need to work on being cuter and being a better big brother!" She ordered, much like a mother would.

"Hey, I'm plenty cute!" The freckled teen replied, kind of hurt. "And you need to work on being a more fun big sister!" He argued. Out of the corner of his raven eyes, he could see Zoro nod his head in agreement.

"Your not cute! In fact -" The girl was interrupted as Sabo appeared and bowed deeply to her.

"Miss, a thousand apologies. My brother over there, he has a severe metal illness, I'm sorry for any trouble Ace might have caused." The blond apologized, picking up his youngest brother, who sat on the ground with his legs crossed, blinking.

"Now that's cute!" The girl pointed at the blond, who gave a sheepish smile, watching as she pulled her little brother out of the park. Slowly, the other children went back to what they were doing.

"W-What?! Wait, I'm not mental!" Ace shouted, insulted.

"Oi! Luffy!" The green haired boy called from down the side-walk. The 5-year-old turned in his blond brothers arms to face the other boy. Zoro smirked, clearing saying _'Your not that bad'_. Luffy smiled back, replying with a _'Not to bad yourself.'_ A mutual friendship was born.

* * *

Luffy sat up against a baby-blue pillow on his brother's bed, playing with a toy stuffed animal, as his other brother wrapped his swollen foot with a white cloth. A few hours had passed since the three had returned home from the park, and Sabo was still pissed at Ace for practically getting their younger brother into a fight. As punishment, the freckled teen was sent to tend to the five-year-old's wounds, which were nothing more than a bruise on his ankle, and a few bite marks. That Zoro had some teeth. Besides that, the five-year-old was sentenced to sleep in the blond's room, under the writer's watch every night until the bed they had ordered arrived in a few days.

"Oh, is that too tight?" The older male asked, as he fumbled with the long tan bandage. Wrapping an ankle is easy, inless your Ace.

"It's okay." The younger replied, a little confused about why his new family was making such a huge fuss over a few cuts, but he was far to sleepy to care much at the moment.

"Hey, about earlier. Where did you learn to throw a punch like that? It was great." The dark-eyed man asked, chuckling. He never thought that his younger brother would be strong enough to cause that kind of damage. Looks like he underestimated the little guy.

"Grandpa taught me." The younger raven voiced. "He said that if someone tries to rape me, I should do that." The older brother choked on his own spit. He started coughing. "I don't really know what 'rape' means, but he said that when the time comes, I'll know." Luffy added as an afterthought.

"W-well, uh. That's good but don't say that word anymore, okay?" The older brother pleaded, coming over his shock. For a minute there, he thought that his brother's innocence was gone. Well, at least Garp did one thing right.

"Okay. I won't." The 5-year-old replied, hugging Sabo's stuffed whale he had named 'Laboon' closer to his chest. He was feeling a lot more comfortable with his brothers since he had started living with them a few days ago. After all, no one who feed him, and let him play with their toys could be all bad, right?


	6. Call me, Captain Usopp, BOW BEFORE ME!

Yeaaah, new chapter after, how long has it been, two days? Anyways, as always, I'd like to thank my beta reader for this chapter because with out her, this would have taken forever to come out. Thank Portgas D. Paula.

I think a lot of people been waiting for this chapter, so I hope you like it. I tried to add as much humor as possible.

**They call me Captain Usopp, BOW BEFORE ME!**

_Chapter Six_

.

School bells are ringing loud and clear.

This means vacation is over, that school is here.

.

It started out with a beautiful, sunny morning. Sunlight shone in through the carelessly closed bedroom window, birds could be heard chirping their sweet, unknown song outside. Luffy had woken up to the smell of something burning. He didn't know how long those rays of sunlight had peeked through the dark purple contains, nor did he know how long it had taken him to become aware of it. He noticed that his blond brother was no longer sleeping in the bed with him. Oddly enough, he had enjoyed sleeping with someone besides a stuffed animal. It was a nice change.

He had dreamed that he was flying a plane, which was strange because the boy had never had any ambition to become a pilot, only a pirate. He rarely had dreams, but when he did they were usually nightmares. It was a special treat for him to be above the clouds, looking over a green countryside. Oh yeah, that burning smell. He was rather curious.

After a while of struggling, he manged to slip off of the blue poke-a-dotted bed, and out the wooden door, leading towards a carpeted hallway. The boy's hair was a mess, and he wore red knit cotton shorts and a yellow flannel sleeve t-shirt. For now, these worked as his pajamas. His brothers had brought him a standard Woodrow when they visited the Buggy mart that one time.

The 5-year-old found himself in the kitchen. Morning light shone in through the small window above the oven, flooding the utensils and pans that Ace was using to cut a piece of what could only be described as burnt ** with bright light. The kid blinked as he watched his older brother cuss under his breath as he ran around the small area, opening drawers and pantries looking for what he needed. It was almost comical.

"... Hi..." Luffy greeted awkwardly, making his presence known to his older brother, who turned and offered him a sheepish grin.

"Hey Lu, I uhh... was trying to make breakfast since it was your first day of school and everything..." He muttered, embarrassed. Oh how he hated to admit that he sucked at cooking. "So... how about a muffin? It looks homemade, so you can just... pretend." He offered and threw a packaged pastry to the 5-year-old, who barely caught it. As the two made their way under a white arch to the living room. Luffy looked around. Something was missing... or rather, someone.

"Wondering where Sabo is?" The freckled teen asked, as he sat on the end of the sofa, placing his feet on the coffee table. "He left a few hours ago for school since kindergarten is different from college. He picks his schedule. We changed our schedules a little, so that when he's not at school I am and vice versa." He nonchalantly explained, closing his eyes as he talked. He was, clearly, a bit sleepy.

"I see..." Luffy replied between bits of muffin. He honestly had no idea what the word 'vise versa' meant, but figured it would be better not to ask.

"Let big brother Ace give you a few tips about school, okay?" The raven haired teen asked, crossing his legs and opening just one of his dark eyes to make eye contract with his younger brother. "Number one, bullying people ain't cool. Even if everyone else is doing it, don't. It will come back to get you. Number two, get to know the principal. That way, you won't get punished as often. Oh, and last, have fun and try to find some friends..." The older male said, hoping he didn't sound to cliche. The 5-year-old nodded. He would make sure to follow all of those rules for the rest of his life!

* * *

Around 20 minutes later, the older brother helped the younger out of the car seat of his old and worn down red Jeep. Luffy's new school was large, and stood proudly at two stories high in some places, with multiple colored cement walls. The look was completed with outdoor hallways, tables, plants and a large, gated playground near the back. The brothers walked hand-in-hand to the main office, which had a classy, yet child-like look to it. At the front stood a heavy oak desk, behind which was a familiar women typing away at the keyboard of her large computer.

"Ahh! You work as a secretary here too?!" The freckled teen asked, surprised. The blond glanced at the raven haired boy only for a moment before returning her eyes to the computer screen.

"I work as a secretary everywhere." Kalifa informed, a hint of creepiness in her businesslike voice. "Name?" She asked.

"You already know my name..." The teen muttered more to himself as he subconsciously frowned, and moved his large hand to the top of the confused 5-year-old's head.

"Name?" The women repeated without emotion, typing away on keyboard, and not bothering to look up at the person she was talking to.

"Portgas D.-" The freckled teen was suddenly cut off, much to his dislike. He narrowed his dark eyes.

"Portgas D. Ace and Monkey D. Luffy. First day of kindergarten, five weeks into the school year. Teacher: Mrs. Maidko. Room: Number 12 on the first floor in the K-4th grade building. Class started five minutes ago, you better run." The blond women informed.

"Gaawwrrr!~ You cut me off on purpose!" Ace accused, pointing his index finger at the woman in his rage. When the blond ignored him, he sighed and retook the brown-eyed boys small hand in his. "Lets get going, Luffy."

* * *

The two males made their way down the sidewalk, searching for room twelve. The older brother could tell that the younger was feeling a little on-edge. Perhaps he was feeling claustrophobic and suffocated by the few dozen kids that lined the sides of the hallway, waiting at the doors of their teacher's classroom. He couldn't image how it must have felt for his baby brother, as he noticed that most of the other children were looking his way, wondering who the new kid was. Just as the two were about to reach their destination, a heavy red maroon door, a sudden gasp from a pink haired 9-year-old caught his attention.

"Its you!" Perona growled, pointing up at Ace, who frowned.

"Ooh, its pinky." The freckled teen muttered, not bothering to learn her name.

"Grr, you're so not cute... humf." Suddenly, the girl stop growling, and crossed her arms over her chest "My daddy said I couldn't make fun of mentally ill people, because they have problems, and people in their heads who talk to them, so I forgive you, you nutty old man!" At the words 'mentally ill' and 'nutty old man' most of the kids in the hall turned to look at Ace, who had gone red in the face.  
"No! That's not true! I'm 19-years-old and perfectly healthy!" He called, blushing. Apparently, none of the children believed his words, as they continued to stare at him curiously "I SWEAR! IT WAS ALL SABO'S IDEA." No change could be seen on the children's faces. The freckled teen sighed, and continued dragging his confused little brother forward "Come on... the room's just up here." He muttered, depressed with how the day was going so far, but more angry at his brother, who had started that rumor.

As Luffy entered the classroom, the first thing he noticed was that every square inch of the walls was covered in posters, signs and banners. Individual small desks and chairs covered most of the area, though colorful toys and rugs could also be seen covering the floor. The students in the classroom didn't pay much attention to him, as, thankfully they were all playing on the floor. Some were in groups, while others were doing things alone. Abruptly, the five-year-old grinned an ear-to-ear smile, as he noticed the teacher was none other than his first friend, Makido, who wore a long blue jeans skirt, green tennis shoes and a short-sleeved green t-shirt that read 'ABC, 123! Find out what it means to me!'

"Ace, Luffy! I'm so glad you guys could make it!~" She cheered as she approached the two. The 5-year-old grinned as he ripped his hand out of his big brother's lose grip and ran up to the women, hugging her legs, much to Ace's surprise and dislike. He couldn't even have a decent talk with his own little brother yet this women got cute little leg hugs?! Not fair!

"I thought I'd never see you again!~" The boy explained, deciding that he wouldn't be letting go of his friend's legs anytime soon.

"You never told him?" The teacher asked the older brother, who gave a sheepish shrug and smiled.

"Kind of just escaped my thoughts, been busy I guess..." He explained, more to himself, causing the woman to chuckle.

"Alright, well I can take things from here if you'd like?" The green haired women suggested.

"Okay, yeah. Bye Luffy, I love you~" The big brother gushed, getting to his knees on eye level with the 5-year-old, who ignored him, enjoying the feeling of his teacher's skirt on his face more. Ace frowned and stood up, heading towards the door once he realized how much more his little brother liked Makido. He would be lying if he said he wasn't a little depressed. Once Ace left, the teacher turned to her students, clapping her hands twice to get everyone's attention. To show that the teacher had the children's full attention, the students repeated her, clapping twice.

"We have a new student, his name is Luffy and he came all the way from Foosha Village." She announced, faking excitement in her voice, as the students 'ooo'ed and 'ahh'ed. Foosha Village was at least a five-hour drive from Water Seven, which made the new 5-year-old foreign, different and new. Perhaps people from Foosha Village talked differently, or had three arms instead of two?

"Hi!" brown-eyed boy said in a friendly manner with a light wave of his hand. Slowly, everyone returned to playing.

"Luffy, could you do me a favor?" The teacher asked, looking off to a boy sitting along at one of the tables, drawing. "Could you go play with that boy over there? His name is Usopp." She informed. Usopp was known to every kid on the playground as a liar and was made fun of almost every day. The woman thought that he needed a friend.

"Okay!" was the pretend pirate's simple answer, before he rushed over to the desk where the slim, somewhat dark-skinned boy sat. He had medium-length curly black hair and a very long nose. He wore an olive-green plaid bandanna and goggles around his head, and worn-out brown overalls with large boots.

"Hi! I'm Luffy." The brown-eyed brown announced, slipping off his tiger-face red backpack, and sitting on a tiny maroon chair next to the long-nosed boy.

"...I know." The long-nosed boy said, as he continued coloring a picture of what looked to be a sea-king

"What?! How?!" The new student asked, surprised and kind of freaked out.

"... You're not that bright are you?" The curly-haired 5-year-old asked, letting his blue colored pencil drop to the desk.

"No, a lot of people call me pale." He explained, Usopp hit his forehead with his hand "Wanna be friends?" Luffy suddenly asked.

"What? You can't just ask people that!" The long-nosed boy explained. He would clearly have to take it slow with this guy, though it was nice to talk to someone besides his dad and teacher for once.

"Really?" The young D. asked, as this was news to him. "Why not?"

"W-well, just because. It doesn't work that way!" The dark-skinned boy knew that the moment he said those words that the other 5-year-old wouldn't understand. "I mean, we just met a few minutes ago, after all!" He tried to reason.

"Does that mean no?" The sun-kissed boy asked, looking fairly disappointed. He didn't know anyone in this class besides the teacher.

"Well, no. Not necessarily, but I'll need time to think it over." Usopp explained. Man, this kid was far too blunt.

"Okay, I understand!" The raven boy cheered, shocking the long-nosed boy. "Have you decided yet?" The curly-haired boy sighed. He had spoken too soon.

"No. I'll let you know when I have, okay?" He asked.

"Awww... Ooo! I know!" Luffy suddenly grinned. "How about you be my friend, and if you don't like it after a while, you can stop?" He asked, The long-nosed boy was flabbergasted at the sudden brilliant suggestion.

"Okay! It's a deal!" The boy agreed and the two shook hands. A promise of friendship between the two was created. Little did they know that a certain green haired teacher had been eavesdropping on the talking the whole time. She smiled, before letting out a small giggle.

"So, what are you drawing?" Luffy asked, curiously, as he stared at the paper upside-down. The other 5-year-old picked the picture up and turned it so that his new friend could see.

"It's a sea-king, see?" The curly-haired male asked. For a five-year-old, the picture was amazing and detailed.

"Wow it looks great!" Luffy cheered.

"It also looks real, but I suppose you wouldn't know that, since you haven't ever gone out to sea." Usopp sighed , looking up at the roof with fake pity.

"You have?!" the brown-eyed boy questioned, excited.

"Of course, back in my years as a pirate." The stars in Luffy's eyes brighten "They called me... Pirate Captain Usopp! The Ruler of the Sea!" The boy lied and boasted.

"Really?! In that case we have to play pirate, okay?!" The 5-year-old begged.

"Sure thing, but I'm the captain." The long-nosed boy agreed with a nod of the head.

"Awww, but I wanted to be the captain~" Luffy pouted. It was only a matter of seconds before the two suddenly fell into identical fits of laughter.

* * *

Thanks for reading and reviewing guys~ ;A;

Look forward to the next chapter, it has both Law, Shanks, Zoro and Kidd in it. I'll try to have that in a few days or so. By the way, this might help if your confused about grades and ages. If I made a mistake, I'm really sorry :) This list shows ages and grades of all the students who will attended the school.

**Luffy:** 5-years-old, kindergarten

**Usopp:** 5-years-old, kindergarten

**Zoro:** 7-year-old, 2nd grade

**Nami:** 6-year-old, 1st grade

**Law:** 9-year-old, 4th grade

**Kidd:** 11-year-old, 4th grade (heh)

**Sanji:** 7-year-old, 2nd grade

**Perona:** 9-year-old, 4th grade.

**Ace:** 19-year-old, college student first year

**Sabo:** 20-year-old, college student 2nd year

**Marco:** 21-year-old, college student 3rd year

Handcock, Mozu and Kiwi, Killer, Franky, Robin, Smoker and a lot of other pirates and marines will make at least one appearance. If you wanna, in your review or pm, could you tell me who you'd like to see? :) Thanks a lot for reading this, it actually makes me so happy that I can't explain it.


	7. Law the Creep & Kidd the 'gang leader'

:D

**Chapter Seven**

**.**

_Law the Creep, Kidd the 'gang ledder' and Zoro, he's scary!_

On the farthest end of the left-wing of the elementary school, surrounded by a 7 foot tall metal gate, lied the playground. Children, aging from 5-years-old to 9-years-old, were scattered around the grassy area as the sun glimmered and winked in the blue sky. Two dark-haired girls with the oddest square hair style were playing hopscotch, while a large group of boys played soccer together. Most students were hovering around the center of the field, where the large jungle Jim was. They waited in long lines to go on the swings, slide and merry-go-round.

Then there was Luffy and Usopp, who sat in the corner of the grounds, leaning against the wall of their orange classroom building, simply talking and finding that they had quite a lot in common with each other. The raven haired boy pouted and looked towards the jungle Jim with longing in his chocolate-brown eyes.

"Why can't we go play over there?" He questioned, watching as a few older kids played tag. It looked like fun.

"Because, Luffy! I already told you!" The long-nosed male muttered. He would clearly have to explain himself again. "The jungle gym is the first place the bullies will look for you!"

"Why are they looking for me again?" The sun-kissed 5-year-old asked, rubbing his raven locks. Everything was so confusing and new. Luckily, he had Usopp to help him out.

"Because you're the new meat!" The long-nosed male yelled in concern for his friend's safety "And guess what? They like meat!" The boy stressed.

"I guess we have a lot in common then! I like meat too!" The young D. giggled while his friend face-palmed. Even though he was young, he was smart and quite senseable for his age. His father had been a very proud man while raising him and had done everything in his power to make his son successful in life.

"No! They would eat you, Luffy! They would eat you as if you _were_ meat!" Usopp emphasized. His words had finally made it through his friend's thick skull.

"What!?" Luffy asked in surprise. "Just like the monsters..." the 5-year-old muttered to himself, shivering slightly. "Well, which ones are they?" He questioned after a moment, looking around the field at nearby students.

"The first is the 4th grader named Kidd, though he was held back twice so he's older then anyone else! He's really strong and scary too. I heard he punches his victim the number of times their age is!" The long-nosed boy gossiped, throwing his thin hands in the air to prove his point. "Next is another 4th grader, who they say does testing on 5-year-old's. He's not that strong, but his mom owns a huge apartment building near here, and he's super rich and creepy. His name is-" Usopp suddenly stopped, his eyes wide as he stared at a shadowy figure behind his friend. "L-L-Law.." The boy finished lamely.

"You know, it's not very polite to talk about people behind their backs." The voice chimed in indifferently. Slowly, Luffy turned around to be met by a large sadistic grin. The 9-year-old was slim, but relatively tall for his age. He had faint black shadows under both of his gray eyes and short black hair that was hidden by a over-sized white fur hat that had brown spots along the rim. He wore a bright yellow hoodie with a black skull on it, along with a pair of old ripped blue jeans and black tennis shoes with white laces.

"So, you're the new guy?" Law questioned, pulling the 5-year-old into a standing position so he could get a better look at his features. "Tell me, why'd you move here?" He curiously asked, as he walked in circles around his new subject, checking the boy out from head to toe from every possible angle.

"I'm Luffy, I moved here because... umm... I'm not sure myself." The kindergartener admitted, not really feeling like telling the story of how he ended up at the school, for it would take too long and he wasn't sure how to.

"I see... My name is Trafalgar Law, and you shouldn't say things like that. They make me curious." He whispered darkly, as he ran his slender dark fingers through the boy's hair, narrowing his grey eyes. Something was wrong about this boy's body, but what? The 5-year-old didn't especially enjoy being touched by some guy he just met.

"You know, your kind of creepy..." The brown-eyed boy informed, causing Usopp to gasp.

"Don't say that!" The long-nosed male barked while Law chuckled coldly.

"I get that a lot, believe it or not." The grey-eyed doctor mused as he pinched his subjects chubby cheeks. "I'm going to be a doctor you see?" He explained, as he started poking Luffy's nose "You have guts, and I wanna see those guts. Be my test subject." It was supposed to be a question, but it came out sounding like a demand.

"No way! I like my guts the way they are, find someone else", the brave little boy retorted, causing the future Doctor to frown, but only for a moment. The 9-year-old suddenly held up one of the 5-year-old's thin pale arms and studied it with his eyes.

"Your skin, it's so soft yet pale... Almost like you're suffering from malnutrition, which is an illness caused by lack of nutrients." The 4th grader reported in a doctor-like voice while frowning, a bit of concern showing in his grey eyes for a few seconds. "Besides that, you also have dozens of cuts and bruises around your rib cage and lower stomach." As if to prove his point, he suddenly punched the 5-year-old in the stomach lightly, thought the hit caused a great deal of pain to the boy since he, indeed, had many bruises under his red sleeveless vest shirt and blue shorts with white fluff near the ends.

"Owie!" He hissed. Usopp, who had stood up and was watching the two, turned his head to the left. _'This Law guy sure uses big words... Maybe I should leave...'_ The curly-haired 5-year-old thought to himself.

"Theses wounds and damages all point to one thing." The 9-year-old grumbled to himself as he slide his fingers around the boy's chin, forcing the 5-year-old to look him in the eye. "Have you been, or are you currently in an abusive relationship with a member of your family, perhaps a man or even a women, mother or father?" He asked indifferently, though one could tell he was very curious, as well as a bit surprised.

"I dunno what you're talking about..." The boy confessed, trying not to chew on his chubby cheeks. The 9-year-old frowned, not pleased with his answer. He was about to push the other student, and force him to explain himself, when another unwanted person showed up, and pulled Luffy out of his grip.

"Kidd." The future doctor said his name in a low growl. The long-nosed boy panicked, while the 5-year-old stayed clueless and continued looking rather bored.

"So you're Luffy, huh?" The new arrival asked. The boy looked far older than nine, despite him being the 4th grade. He might have been eleven, or even twelve. Kidd was pale, yet muscular with bright red hair that resembled flames. He had black circles around his dark red eyes, dark purple lips, and a pointed nose. He also had black painted fingernails and no eyebrows. Quite the character, this one was. "Tell me, how old are you?" He questioned, cracking his fingers.

"Oh, I'm five!" The boy cheered, holding up five fingers to prove his point "Today I learned that five is half of ten so I'm pretty happy!" Luffy informed, smiling.

"Don't tell him that!" Usopp exclaimed, but his warning was once again ignored. The red-haired boy smirked.

"Five? Okay then, I'll count down for you, ready? One, Two, Three!" On the number three, the redhead throw a punch, aiming for the 5-year-old's chin. Fortunately, before it could hit, the young doctor pulled his subject into his chest, his arms crossed protectively around him.

"Don't mess up his face or chest, Eustass. I need him for my experiments." The 9-year-old doctor nagged to the 11-year-old, who frowned.

"Gimme back my gang member, now!" Kidd demanded, stomping his foot.

"Gang member?!" Law taunted, revolted by the thought.

"Yeah! If he could last longer than five punches I was gonna have his join my gang." The fire headed male growled.

"Well that's too bad since I already called dibs." As the two continued yelling, Luffy shut his eyes and leaned his head on Law's chest, trying to sleep. He honestly didn't care about either of the children around him at the moment, he was just tired from such a long day. "Besides, you don't have a gang, your older cousin, Killer does. He doesn't even want you to join. " The doctor snapped, pissing off the red-head further.

"Shut up! One day I'll have a huge gang and we're kick your gang's butts!" The 11-year-old challenged, proving to be quite the badass he as cussed around the two 5-year-olds and nine-year-old.

"My, my, what a limited vocabulary you have. You're so dense that you can't even comprehend the fact that I want to be a doctor, not a delinquent like yourself." The 9-year-old explained in a clam voice, smirking.

"STOP USING SUCH WEIRD WORDS, NO ONE EVEN KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!" Kidd shrieked, as he made a grab for the half-asleep five-year-old's left hand, trying to pull him towards himself. Law, not one to give up what's his, grabbed Luffy's right arm. As the two started to play a vicious game of tug of war, Usopp stared, flabbergasted. This kid... This kid had really bad luck!

"HE'S MINE!" Eustass hissed, and gave another hard pull.

"I SAW HIM FIRST!" Trafalgar yelled, no longer willing to keep his voice down.

"Actually, I saw him first..." The long-nosed boy chimed in.

"BE QUIET!" Both older boys ordered the curly-haired male, who yelped.

"URRHGG!~ YOUR GONNA RIP MY ARMS OFF!~" Luffy whimpered, feeling his bones starting to pull away from their sockets.

"Hey, hey now... uh, lets remember to uh... share?" A new, kind voice chuckled, as he easily pulled the two raging boys off the younger one, who sighed in relief and looked up at his savior. The man was tall and lean, wearing a long black cape over his shoulders like a super hero. He had an old straw hat on his unkempt red hair. His clothing looked more like pajama's, loose brown trousers cut below the knee with gold buttons trailing down the outer pant leg and a badly buttoned white dress shirt.

"Principal Shanks!" Usopp, Law and Kidd all marveled at the same time, surprising the new student, who rubbed his sore arms.

"Principal Shanks, Kidd punched Luffy in the face." The young doctor sang to the grown man, who decided to sit on the grass, coming to eye-level with the four boys.

"Did not!" The red haired boy hissed, and glared at the 9-year-old who merely gave him a cheeky smirk.

"Now Law," The principal addressed. "Do you like it when people tattle on you?" He asked in a wise voice that he often used to teach someone.

"Did too." The future doctor quickly replied to Kidd's statement before the principal's . "No, sir." He answered.

"Then why would you tattle on someone else?" The red-headed man wondered.

"Because it's fun." The grey eyed boy admitted with a shrug, causing the 29-year-old man to laugh loudly.

"Just as I thought Law. You have a reason for everything." Shanks chuckled before his black eyes met chocolate-brown eyes for just a moment. "Are you Luffy? My wife told me all about you~" the principal stuck out his hand to shake, remembering that the reason he had come out to the recess field in the first place was to met the boy. His wife had kindly filled him in, and explained the 5-year-old's situation. His past had reminded the man of his own, so he decided to help. Besides, he was nosy and bored!

"Umm..." The young D. muttered, feeling far less comfortable than before. This, of course, didn't go unnoticed by the young doctor.

"What's wrong, Luffy, won't you answer Shanks?~ What happened to that playful innocent boy, hmm?~" Trafalgar integrated, conducting a test.

"I'm... Luffy" The 5-year-old awkwardly announced, lightly shaking the man's hand with his own.

"Eureka!" Law suddenly cheered, gaining the attention of his other peers. "Allow me to explain. According to a test taken a few years ago, a psychological effect of abuse is the inability to trust humans who seem to be the same age, gender or look similar to the abuser!" The three students and principal blinked, bewildered.

"Allow me to elaborate. When a relationship enters a stage of physical abuse, the abused naturally loses trust in the abuser. These issues of trust can often spill over into other, unrelated relationships, even with close friends or other family members. In other words, Luffy doesn't feel safe." The 9-year-old finished, frowning when he saw that the others were still staring, baffled

"...Did you get that from Wikipedia or something?" The red-haired man asked, turning his head slightly to the right in thought. He understood about half of that.

"It's like I said before..." Kidd announced, shrugging "No one knows what you're talking about when you say things like that..."

"I'm with Kidd on that one... I didn't get a word of it." Usopp agreed, waving his hand is dismissal.

"FOOLS!" The 9-year-old doctor shouted, growing slightly pink with embarrassment "I'm surrounded by fools!" The 9-year-old growled as he decided to walk off to the lunch room.

"Grr, I wish that guy would shut up already with those big words and stupid explanations of his!" The flaming haired boy's raging was suddenly cut off when a soccer ball slammed into his head, causing him to fall over. Still on the floor, he looked towards a familiar green headed 3rd grader that was walking their way, probably to reclaim the ball.

"Oops.~ Sorry, Kidd" The green-eyed 8-year-old said with fake pity. "It seemed that you woke me up from my nap with all your screaming." He taunted, while Shanks simply laughed. Boys will be boys, after all.

"Zoro." the 11-year-old hissed, getting back on his feet.

"Heey! Zoro!~" Luffy was overjoyed to see the green-haired boy's familiar face, as he bent down to pick up and soccer ball before returning it to the 9-year-old "Remember me? It's Luffy!" he questioned, paying no attention to Usopp, who was shaking in his boots, Kidd who was watching with a raised eyebrow or Shanks, who stood up and started wiping his pants free of grass.

"Jeez, its you... yeah, I remember." The mosshead groaned, taking the ball of the 5-year-old's tiny hands.

"Can we play soccer with you, Zoro?" the young D. asks innocently.

"I was sleeping, not playing soccer. I took this from those guys." The mosshead replied, pointing over his shoulder at a group of depressed second graders who stood aimlessly on the soccer field, wondering if they'd ever get their ball back.

"Oh... Hey Zoro, you're big and strong! If me and Usopp go to the jungle gym, you can protect us from bullies, right?" The brown-eyed boy asked, excitement evident in his speech. Kidd rolled his eyes, and leaned on the wall, crossing his arms.

"L-Luffy... Z-Z-Zoro is t-the b-bully..." The long-nosed boy informed, hiding behind Kidd's leg, as if that was somehow safer.

"What?! Really? That's not cool, Zoro!" The other 5-year-old exclaimed, surprised "Ace said that people shouldn't bully other people because it will come back to bite you."

"Isn't Ace mentally ill?" the 8-year-old inquired, raising a thin eyebrow. The booming laughter of the red-headed principal caught the attention of the four boys.

"Ah, well, it was nice meeting you Luffy, if you ever want to talk, feel free to drop by my office, some lady brought cupcakes the other day, they taste awesome." The 29-year-old said in awe, causing the 11-year-old to frown. Was he trying to get his new victim to go to his office with food? That's low, even for him. As the principal started walking away, he suddenly looked over his shoulder, as if just remembering something. "Oh, Kidd, you need to come with me to my office, now." Shanks ordered in a sightly more serious voice. As the 11-year-old trotted behind the man, he muttered something about getting that stupid bastard Law back.

The three students spent the rest of recess playing together, Zoro and Luffy racing to see who could do the monkey bars fastest, while Usopp impressed the two when he manged to throw a rock over the tall fence. The start of a beautiful friendship that would last forever started that day.

"I take the bus home, so I guess I'll see you later, Luffy." Usopp mused, taking a left while his new friend took a right. Zoro had gotten away from his friends somehow. Maybe he had gotten lost. School had just ended about five minutes ago, and the halls were full of rushing kids, each running to the buses or mom's car, wanting to get home as soon as possible to eat, play and do homework.

"Okay! Bye, Usopp!" The new student yelled, waving like a crazy man as his friend disappeared from his line of sight. Upon turning around to start walking to the front of the school, he bumped into something, or rather someone. "Oh, hi Law... I mean," The boy quickly remembered that the young doctor was suppose to be a bad guy, so he gasped dramatically "Law!"

"Hello again, Luffy." The 9-year-old greeted, motioning for the younger boy to walk besides him as he made his way down the hall. "I know we might not have gotten off on the right foot this morning, but I really want to talk to you about something very important." The grey-eyed boy spoke in a very slow voice, trying to make sure that the younger boy would understand.

"When you say 'wrong foot', do you mean left foot? Besides there's a right foot and a left foot but I alwayes wondered why they just call it the 'wrong foot'. " The 5-year-old interjected, pointing to each foot as he talked.

"Hmm, that's an good point you made there..." The future doctor praised, before remembering why he had wanted to have a conversation with the younger boy. "Anyways, I wanted to ask if anyone ever hits you?" the boy questioned, sightly concerned. Now, don't get him wrong, he could care less about some random little kid, but he wouldn't be able to sleep at night if he didn't willingly help a damaged person. His doctor side wouldn't allow it. Also, he was born so curious that a person might call it a sickness, and this boy was not helping his illness at all.

"Yeah, you hit me today in the tummy!" the brown-eyed boy accused, pointing fingers. Law rolled his eyes.

"Besides that." The 9-year-old requested.

"Well, Zoro and me had a fight at the park over who got to go on the monkey bars. He hit me a lot but I got a few really good punches in, even Ace said so, and Sabo looked proud." The young D admitted. He was growing to like his brothers and trust them a bit more each day.

"You're not planning on making this easy for me, are you?" The grey-eyed doctor asked himself before sighing. "Who are Ace and Sabo?" He continued his interrogation.

"They're my big brother's." Luffy simply stated. "Hey, can I call you Taffy?" The boy suddenly asked, which the 9-year-old chose to ignore, for he had just gained more information.

"Do they hit you?" Law asked. he wanted, no, needed to know how the boy got his bruises. It was eating him up!

"It's kind of funny, but they don't." The brown-eyed boy acknowledged with a grin.

"Okay! Now we're getting somewhere!" Law cheered as the two approached the font gates of the school, where many teachers and students were waiting. Before the two could continue their chat, they realized that a familiar 11-year-old was blocking there path, not allowing the two to leave the school grounds.

"Oh, it's Law and Luffy. I wonder why I keep running into you two today?" Kidd mocked in his usual voice, chewing on a large piece of pink bubblegum, a smirk pulling at his dark purple lips.

"We didn't run into you?!" the 5-year-old blurted, causing the grey-eyed boy to sigh and roll his eyes for what felt like the dozen's time that day.

"Pardon my test subject. Luffy doesn't seem to understand what a figure of speech is." The 9-year-old groaned, but went on "If I had to make a guess, it would be that you followed us." the boy proclaimed, tucking his stuffed bear under his arm.

"Why would I follow you?!" the playground bully hollered, insulted.

"Well, studies about reverse psychology indicate that when a young and confused boy has feelings of 'love' or 'interest' for another, they will often show those feelings by bulling or stalking the one they are infatuated with." Law responded indifferently.

"W-what! Did you just accuse me of liking the likes of you! That's sick!" Eustass stuttered, unable to fight the blush that appeared on his face.

"Whoa! I think your the one that's sick, Kiddie! You're all red, are you okay?" The five-year-old worried as he ran up and attempted to touch the pale kid's head. Immediately, the 11-year-old grabbed his arm and glared at the boy.

"Don't. Call. Me. Kiddie." The redhead growled "You're lucky, I won't hurt you today, but that's only because I don't have the time. But don't worry, you can have this as an reward for not crying yet." the 11-year-old threatened. He pulled the gum out of his mouth, and stuck it to the back of the 5-year-old's head.

"Ew, gross!" Luffy shrieked, trying to rip the gum out of his hair only to have it pull and stick to his fingers.

"Now, now Kiddie, that's not very nice" Law teased, as the 11-year-old sent him one last glare before exiting the blue gates in to the back seat of a small blue toyota. "Oh, by the way, if you can, when you get that gum off, please put it in a zip-lock bag and bring it to me. I could finally find out whether being stupid is a disease or not." The boy chuckled.

"That's weird!" Luffy observed.

"Call it a doctor's playful mind." The grey-eyed boy shrugged.

"Your weird!" the 5-year-old exclaimed.

"Speak for yourself." the 9-year-old responded, as he noticed his mom's bright pink SUV pull into the school parking lot.

"I do speak for myself!" The brown-eyed boy pointed out, growing sightly annoyed.

"Goodbye Luffy." Law simply stated, glad that his mother's car had picked that moment to arrive. He walked down the sidewalk.

"Okay, bye Taffy~" The 5-year-old called to him, as he entered his mom's car. He narrowed his eyes, but didn't comment. Out of the corner of the new student's eye, he noticed a familiar baby blue truck pull in to the lot. At first, he wasn't sure if it was his big brother or not, but upon seeing a head of short blond hair, he raced across the street. As he was doing this, Sabo rolled down the window and gave his baby brother a welcoming


	8. Fufufufu Robin

Hey guys, back with another update. I want to thanks two people who have helped me with this story a lot.

**Portgas D. Paula** - Thanks for being my amazing beta reader for this story. Your a great person and without you, It would take me forever to publish a chapter.

**Serene Grace** - Thanks for being one of my best friends on this site as well as always being there when I need to talk a story over with someone. Its thanks to you that new ideas always come in to my head.

Also, thank you for all the kind reviews. ;-; your all so beautiful. Also, I get a lot of really great ideas for reviews so I owe you guys a lot :D

* * *

**~~~~~Chapter 8~~~~~**

_**~~Fufufufu ~ Robin~~**_

_._

_~~ I'm glad I can talk to your about fictional character's ~~_

_~~~~~ as if they were real ~~~~~_

_ ~~~~ and have you still think I'm Sane.~~~~_

_._

Not more than a week had passed at Grand Line Elementary since their newest student, a five-year-old, had joined. Said boy was currently doing what he always did at this time of day: lying down on the floor of his kindergarten classroom with his best friend, another five-year-old, who had a long nose. Usopp was drawing like he usually did, while Luffy simply talked, annoying the long-nosed kid as drew very poorly drawn pictures. The brown-eyed boy held up a lined piece of paper he had just got done coloring with his broken crayons.

"See? Isn't it cool?!" Luffy questioned, a grin on his chubby round face. The curly-haired boy turned his head to the left as he stared at the picture, he frowned. He didn't want to seem rude, but the image looked like a unicorn just threw up rainbows on it.

"What is that?" The long-nosed asked.

"There my brothers!" The 5-year-old exclaimed, as if Usopp was the stupidest person alive for not realizing it sooner. "Sabo, Ace and me" The raven explained, pointing to each of the badly drawn snow monster-like figures on the paper. Slowly, the long-nosed boy nodded, still unsure. They didn't notice Makino hang up her phone, get up from her desk and head towards them.

"Luffy, principal Shank would like to see you now, if that's okay." The sudden sweet and girly voice caused the two 5-year-olds to look up at their teacher. At her words, the entire class because quiet. Some kids whispered_ 'oooo'_ and _'he's in trrrooouuble'_ silently.** (1)** The curly-haired boy gave his friend a look full of concern. No one went to see the principal unless it was bad!

"Okay..." The young brown-eyed boy replied, though anyone could hear the slight uncertainty lingering in his voice. The teacher smiled at him. As Luffy made his way out of the busy classroom, he noticed the long nose boy mouth the words 'Be careful, I'll see you at lunch?' to him. The 5-year-old had grinned and nodded at his friend before exiting the room.

* * *

Upon walking down the halls for a few minutes (he had gotten lost) and entering the main office, Luffy had been directed by Kalifa, the blond secretary who was sitting behind a desk, down a narrow hall to a tall tan wooden door that was labeled _'Principal Shank's Office'_ with a cheap plastic frame. Once the blond women had left, the 5-year-old simply stood in front of the door, not daring to open it. The door was ajar, so he peeked through it. The small space consisted of a few bookshelves lining the white walls, a large cherry-red oak desk in the center and three maroon love-seats placed around it. The walls were covered in pictures of family and friends, a lot of which included Makino, and a few other people who looked relatively fun and friendly. The 5-year-old's little hands were sweaty as he slipped past the doorway and softly closed the door behind him.

The quiet noise caused the red-haired man, who sat at one of the love seats at his desk, to look up from the book he had been skimming through. The red-haired man smiled kindly before slamming the book shut and chucking it at the 5-year-old! If the boy hadn't been watching carefully, the thick novel would have surly smashed right into his skull! Luckily, he had managed to catch it with two hands just in time. Yup, it was a fact now, he had been called in for a beating or scolding... or perhaps this guy was just crazy and insensitive.

"That's a book." Shanks said, matter-of factly, as he motioned for the boy to sit across from him in one of the two remaining red chairs. Slowly, the 5-year-old did.

"Umm, I dunno how to read." The brown-eyed boy muttered, looking at the flooring.

"You'll figure it out- wait, I mean-" The red-haired man gasped, as if just realizing that the words he had spoken might have been the wrong ones. "Ask one of your brothers to read it to you, or one of those friends of yours." Shanks suggested, leaning back in his chair and placing his feet on the desk, not that Luffy really took any notice of the action. "Like that smart one... what was his name? Laughy? Lucky? Lay? Corleone? Luck? Justin? Condoriano? Law? That's it Law!" The man snapped his fingers, happy that he had remembered the 4th grader's name "I bet he knows how to read really well." The man mused. The brown-eyed student nodded, still refusing to look Shanks in the eye. After all, he had just barely gotten use to seeing people this week. So many new faces and names, but also so many new friends. Though he still didn't trust his brothers much, he trusted this man even less.

"Aren't you gonna ask what it's about?" Shanks whined. Clearly, the man had been looking forward to telling the boy what the book was about. "It's about pirates!~" The red-head blurted out. At his words, the boy looked up, as if wondering if he had heard the teacher right.

"Pirates?" Luffy questioned. The 29-year-old silently cheered, mentally thanking his wife for telling him about the 5-year-old's love of all things involving pirates.

"Yup, it's about a boy who raises among others to become the world's best pirate, gathers his own crew and goes on awesome adventures. Though, there's some sad parts, you might want to wait till your old-" The red hair was cut off.

"No! I mean... I can handle it!" The 5-year-old exclaimed, waving both hands in dismissal. Shanks laughed and shut his eyes, thinking of the best way to summarize the story that he had read so many times before.

"It has a happy ending. The kid has to travel all the seas on his ship. They go to these cool islands where they explore. Like this one in the sky and this desert kingdom." When the 29-year-old opened his dark eyes again, he noticed that the 5-year-old was no longer with him. Had the boy ran out of his office? 'No fair!' Before the redhead had time to go run after the boy, his phone rang.

* * *

"TAAAFFFFYY~!" Luffy screamed at the top of his lungs as he bolted down the hallways that were filled with children, his new and first book clutched tightly in his thin arms. He bumped into multiple people, but didn't even bother to say _'sorry', 'please forgive me'_ or _'excuse me'_ like his grandpa had taught him. It was no surprise that the halls were busy, after all, classes had ended less than a five minutes ago. Every child was eager to go to the playground, and met up with their friends. Luffy slightly remembered bumping into Kidd so hard and at such a high-speed that he had knocked the red-head over. Sadly, the 5-year-old didn't have the time to stop to help or talk to the 11-year-old, so instead he simply ran under the raging young boy's legs to the playground, which as always, was over-crowded.

"LAAAAAW?!" He continued to shouted as he ran over a game of hopscotch that two older girls were playing. Both had the strangest square like black hair. Luffy might had stopped to make friends with the two, since he really enjoyed weird people, but no! He had to read this novel now! He noticed a group of older kids playing with a jump rope that was in his way. Not having enough time to move, he simply jump through the ropes, crossing and tripping over a boy who had been jumping. He paid no attention to the_ 'oooo's_ and _'he's pretty good!'_ that the group was whispering as he continued on his quest. This book was important, he needed to find the one person who could read it to him right now!

"Luffy, why are you calling for Law? Do you want to die?!" The familiar voice belonging to Usopp caused the brown-eyed boy to stop and turn around, looking at his two best friends that sat against the back of the classroom. The other 5-year-old seemed to have been busy throwing rocks at a soda can, while Zoro was cursing under his breath as he did his late homework. The moss-headed 7-year-old stood facing the building, using the flat wall as a writing surface.

"..." The raven boy said nothing as he joined his other friends, sitting between the moss-head and the long-nosed boy. The young D frowned and rubbed the side of his head. "I donno... I forgot." The youngest brother admitted, growing pale. "It was really important through! I need to remember!" He said in pure horror, still holding his precious novel to his chest.

"How could you forget something if it's so important?" The green-headed 7-year-old wondered aloud.

"Oi, says the guy who forgot to do his homework!" The long-nosed boy accused. In the short time he had known the trainee swordsman, he had realized that he wasn't nearly as scary as everyone had told him. In fact, he might even go as far as to say that the green-eyed 7-year-old was his friend. It was funny in a way, if he hadn't met Luffy, he would still be so lonely and friendless.

"I remember the important things! Like that I need to get stronger!" The older child hissed, dropping the homework and getting down on all fours, doing push-ups. "Stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger..." The 7-year-old muttered more to himself under his breath as he continued.

"Yeah, me too! I'll help you Zoro!" The 5-year-old cheered and suddenly jumped on to the 7-year-old's back, causing the boy to slow down. The long-nosed male sighed and slammed his tan hand to his forehead. Maybe he was better off alone, after all.

"What's up with your guy's need to get stronger anyways?" The curly-haired 5-year-old question, though, he knew he would not reserve an answer. For Zoro was too busy keeping count of how many push-ups he had done while Luffy was having far too much fun riding on the 7-year-old's back, yelling _'giddy up, dinosaur! Faster!'_ while gripping the moss-head's t-shirt collar.

"The point is simply pushing, reaching and going above limits to prove to one's self that they can do and protect anything." a tired and soft voice informed, causing the long-nosed boy to yelp in surprise.

"L-law! D-don't sneak up on me like that!" At the name, Zoro and Luffy looked towards the oldest among them, the 9-year-old known as Law. The future doctor stood proudly next to Usopp, an indifferent look on his sleepy face. The dark circles under his eyes looked bigger and his eyes were halfway closed, trying to fight the urge to take a nap.

"Sorry." The 4th grader yawned, covering his mouth with his hand, as he allowed his grey eyes to trail over Luffy.

"Wow, your eyes look more weird than they usually do." The young D brother observed, pointing at the doctor's dark heavy eyelids. Suddenly, the 9-year-old easily pulled the 5-year-old off Zoro's back and pushed him up against the wall of the building. Ready for a fight, the moss-headed 7-year-old stood, glaring at the doctor.

"Luffy... tell me who was the cause of your malnutrition. I've tried to figure it out... I-I can't sleep at night..." The 4th grader explained, though, it was almost as if he was begging the small child to tell him. The doctor had spent all last night awake, pacing in his room. He had to know, it was just how he was born. It was eating him up, dammit! "How about I talk to your brothers? Can I do that?"

"Umm, okay?" The kindergartener mumbled. Suddenly the boy gasped, remembering something very important. "TAFFY!" He screamed without warning, his spit flying into the older child's face. The 9-year-old almost flinched. He sure wasn't expecting that.

"Its Law." The doctor corrected, eyebrow twitching.

"TAFFY!" Lu proclaimed, once again spitting as his large brown eyes widened while he gripped the older boy's shoulders desperately.

"...What?" The doctor questioned, realizing the he would simply be wasting his time if he tried to teach the younger boy his name.

"Read this to me?!" The 5-year-old begged holding up his book close to the 4th grader's face. "Pwease?"

"That's what was so important?!" The moss headed boy and curly-haired 5-year-old asked, sweat-dropping.

"I... uh.." Honestly, the doctor didn't enjoy reading a loud to anyone but how could he say no to the face that the young child was making? Those large chocolate-brown eyes, so sweet, loving, trusting and faithful staring in to his very soul! The nine-year-old had never witnessed such a stare in his life. He realized that he was helpless. "Okay."

"Yeaaah! Taffy's gonna read to us!" The 5-year-old cheered, sitting next to Usopp and watching Law with anticipating eyes.

"Make sure you do the voices." Zoro, who chose to stand instead of sit reminded, still glaring at the doctor. He found this guy very creepy to say the least.

"I don't do voices." Law growled, not particularly fond of the mosshead.

"My daddy always does the voices." The long-nosed boy commented, nodding. Voices were necessary for a good reader.

"Yeah, my dad and sister do that, too." The 7-year-old agreed, remembering that time he couldn't stop laughing when his dad, Hawk-Eye, had done the voice of a princess while reading to him and his sister.

"What voices?" Luffy questioned curiously. Did books talk now?! Amazing!

"You know, how your dad talks in a different way to show how a person in a book would talk." Usopp explained

"Oh... well I don't have a dad and no one really ever read to me but Sabo a few times..." The 5-year-old replied, a touch of sadness in his voice.

"I, too, have no father. You shouldn't say such thoughtless things around others, especially someone like Luffy, who suffers at the hand of his father and brothers... maybe." Law voiced, moving to ruffle the 5-year-old's hair but instead ended up giving him a light slap on the forehead. The brown-eyed boy merely gave a sound of displeasure.

"Get on with it." The 7-year-old muttered, growing bored.

"Fine... I've read this book before many times." The oldest child told himself more than the other boys as he turned to the first page. "Wealth, Fame, Power. The man who had acquired everything in this world, the ruler of the sea, Gold Roger. The last words that were said at his execution sent thousands of people to the seas." The 9-year-old read indifferently, obvious to the 5-year-old gasping and hanging on to each word he spoke. The sight was quite cute in a way, Usopp blinking and playing with the fabric of his shorts while Luffy sat flabbergasted. Zoro had his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall, pretending not to listen.

"Inherited Will, The Destiny of the Age, The dreams of its people. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of freedom, these things will never stop." Law continued "The man said to the crowd of watching townsfolk,_ 'You want my treasure? You can have it. I left it all in one place.'_ "

"Do the voices! He wouldn't talk like that." The mosshead complained, Usopp nodded.

"Grrr..." The nine-year old growled. Why? Why did life hate him so? "'You want my treasure?!~ You can have it!~ I left it all in one place!'~ " He repeated himself in the stupidest and most obnoxious voice he could. The three younger children stared at the older for a few moments before all three of them were laughing uncontrollably, even Zoro.

"W-what was that?!" The long-nosed one questioned, wiping a tear away from his brown eyes.

"I-I did his voice!" The future doctor explained, as his cheeks took on a pinkish color.

"That's not how he sounds! You make him sound so stupid." Zoro hissed.

"Do you believe you could do better, Roronoa?" The 9-year-old questioned. This kid really got on his nerves.

"Of course." The moss-headed boy growled. The two were about to fight to the death when a sudden flash of orange appeared and smashed her tennis shoe in to the 9-year-old's lower body, between his legs.

"My man tissue!~" Law cried, as he fell to the floor, gripping between his legs with his hand. Luffy gasped... those moves... they reminded him of someone. The 5-year-old suddenly became aware of another scream, this one belonging to Zoro, who had also just gotten hit in the balls. It was comical, really The two 5-year-old's watched in pure horror as the older boys laid in agonizing pain on the grassy floor, both gripping their testicles.

"WHERE'S MY MONEY, ZORO?" The girl, none other than the orange-haired beauty Nami, questioned. Her foot rested on Zoro's chest as she glared down at him.

"I can understand Zoro,~ but why did you have to hit me?~" The 4th grader whimpered, tears gathering in the edges of his dark eyes.

"You got in my way..." The orange-haired girl replied coldly.

"... Okay." The 9-year-old muttered. He knew better than to disagree with Nami. "They haven't even fully depleted..." The doctor, who was acting a little out of character, muttered to himself.

"Whoa! She took out Zoro and Law with just one hit!" Usopp shrieked fearfully, shivering. Immediately, he ran up to the girl and started bowing, treating her as if she was his goddess.

"Of course, that's Nami! She's strong!" The 5-year-old giggled, sort of proudly as he stood up and walked over to Law, taking his book out of the oldest boy's cold hands. "Thanks for reading to me, Taffy." The boy thanked and oldest boy, who nodded and closed his eyes. He placed Bepo, his beloved stuffed animal, under his head. Nap time.

"Remember me Nami?! Its Luffy!" The 5-year-old cheered, heading up to the orange haired girl and opening his arms for a hug. Nami was not amused.

"Yeah. How could I forget someone as annoying and useless as you?" The girl teased.

"Shut up woman! At least Luffy doesn't have to cheat to win his fig- OW!" The 7-year-old boy had been ready to stand up for his friend when he received another painful kick in the penis, silencing him.

"I asked you a question, Zoro." The orange-haired girl repeated herself, her sly fox-like grin growing "You owe me more money then I can count and I can count to a pretty big number." She chuckled coldly.

"Shishshsh!~ Nami, can you read this for me?" The 5-year-old simply giggled and held up the novel "Pwease?"

"Don't Luffy! This woman charges you for anything you ask! You're better off waiting till you get home and can have that mentally ill brother read to you- OW!" Luffy flinched, watching in horror as the strongest person he knew was once again kicked in the balls. The 5-year-old wasn't sure about why the green-haired boy seemed to be in so much pain but still, he felt sorry for him.

"Now now, I'd be glad to read to you for a small price, but, sadly I only read at a 2nd grade level." The words from the orange-haired girl's mouth sounded honest, thought not regretful.

"Won't someone read to me?" The 5-year-old asked himself, sniffing. He had never come across a book as cool as this one sounded. He felt so frustrated and helpless. The poor boy felt like crying but refused to. Instead, he simply frowned, causing Usopp to worry, he momentarily stopped bowing to comfort his friend. Zoro who looked to be wondering what someone else would do in this situation.

"Fufufufufu, I'll read to you." A kind and soft voice spoke from a few feet above the children. Upon looking up, Luffy saw a tall, slender, yet athletic women looking around 20 or 21-years old. She had shoulder-length silky black had and beautiful ice blue eyes. Her skin tone was slightly darker than Luffy's, and she had a thin defined nose. With long limbs covered in a light purple hoodie and black jeans, she was probably the prettiest and most grown up lady the 5-year-old had seen in his short life.

"Robin? What are you doing here?" The mossheaded boy questioned, raising an eyebrow as he managed to sit up. He would be lying if he said he wasn't glad to see the woman that he knew as his next door neighbor.

"Your father asked me to pick you and your older sister up earlier today. Something about a funeral." The older women explained, giving a sad grin to the boy. She got on her knees to get to eye level. Usopp hid behind Luffy shyly, while said boy grinned ear-to-ear.

"Right... mom." The mossheaded boy whispered to himself, a sight tinge on depression in his voice that made Nami feel slightly regretful for hitting the guy in the balls so many times... nah.

"You'll really read to me?" The brown-eyed five-year-old asked, wide pleading eyes. He said the words in such a way that reminded Robin of how a small boy might act when his parents offered to get him a puppy.

"Of course." The woman smiled, gently taking the book out of the boy's hand and opening it on the first page.

"... Make sure to do voices." Zoro reminded her.

"Fufufu~ okay." Robin chuckled. "Our story starts with a young 17-year-old boy named Penguin M. Edward..."

That's how the five children spent their lunch break: In totally awe of the best adventure story they had ever heard, except Law, who slept. Luffy found himself very glad that Shanks had given him the book. He would have to thank the man some time.

* * *

(1): My gosh, everyone at my school did this! It was annoying as hell! Keep in mind that I based this story off my own school and based it off many things that happened to myself as a little kid.

Also, just to let you guys know, when I make fun of Ace's metal illness, I'm not making fun of metal ill people but instead, just making fun of Ace himself. It's a reaccoringing joke so remember that.


	9. The war Starts!

I'M SO SORRY

I could give you 100 reasons but the biggest one is that a man in a wheel chair broke three of my fingers. Thus, this took a really long time to write. Then I had to find another beta reader and blah! I'm so sorry and I hope you still love me? ;-;

I'll put the final touches on this chapter later. For now, here you go!

* * *

The War Starts

Chapter Nine

Law and Luffy had made an unofficial meeting spot for each other after school. Each day after classes, the two would find each other at the blue bench that stood across from the metal blue gates that lead to the main parking lot. Most of the time, the older boy would question the younger boy about his relationships and if he had any, help him with some homework. Currently, the two boys waited for what seemed like hours for either of their parents to come and pick them up. The blond older brother always ran late as did Law's mother.

"Taffy, what about this one?" The five-year-old wondered, pointing his number two pencil at the number three that was written in a bubble-letter font on his homework page. The older opened one of his grey eyes and nonchalantly scanned the paper.

"That is the number three. It comes after one and two but before four. Like three monkeys, three people or three polar bears." The future doctor gave an example as he subconsciously squeezed his stuffed bear, Bepo closer to him. Poor Bepo had been forced to spend the last few hours of school inside of his back pack since his teacher no longer allowed him to hold the stuffed animal during class time. What kind of monster was that guy?! Didn't he understand that his stuffed friend would surly die if he couldn't breathe?! The fool. "You draw it like the right half of a three-piece snowman."

"Oh... Hey, what's a snowman?" The young boy questioned, tilting his head to the left as he studied his homework.

"A representation of a human figure created with compressed snow." The 9-year-old explained. He wasn't surprised that the 5-year-old didn't know.

"Oh... Hey, what's sn-" The youngest D was about to ask when the older cut him off.

"Atmospheric water vapor frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer." The 4th grader informed, not missing a beat.

"Oh... Hey, what's vap-" Once again, the 5-year-old was interrupted.

"a substance diffused or suspended in the air, such as rain water or toxic poison." Law answered, scanning the parking lot with his eyes. This would be a great time for his mom to come. After all, one could only handle Luffy's nonstop questions for so long.

"Oh... Hey, what's a substa-" The 5-year-old was not given the chance to finish finishing his question.

"Isn't that your brother's car?" The 4th grade asked, point to a baby blue pick-up truck that Luffy insistently recognized.

"Yeah! See you later Taffy!" The 5-year-old laughed as he smashed the paper into his shoulder bag and would have happily ran off if it wasn't for the firm grip on his shoulder from Law, keeping him in place.

"I would like to meet him." The words were a request, but from the doctor, they were an order. The 5-year-old simply nodded before leading the older to his car. Half way to the truck, the blond rolled

down the window and smiled at the boys like he usually did, silently telling his little brother that he was a safe and gentle person. Sabo raised one thin brow as he noticed the other kid besides his brother, who glared at him.

"Hey Lu.. eh, whose your friend?" The top hated teen asked.

"Oh, this is Tafffy." Luffy voiced coolly.

"The name's Law. Trafalgar Law. I'm a 4th grader at Grand Line elementary, a doctor and one of your little brother's... friends." The future doctor finished his sentence lamely. To him, the blond didn't look like a 'bad' guy but they hardly ever do. Of course, he knew that he could be wrong, after all, he was just a 9-year-old boy but he also knew that he was hardly ever wrong. In his over-sized mind, he thought up a test.

"Luffy, do me a favor." The 4th grader requested the youngest D. In order to perform his experiment, he would need to be alone. "Take Bepo back to the bench, he gets overheated quietly and is beginning to grow uncomfortable." Sabo chuckled as he watched Law careful hand over his beloved stuffed bear to the younger boy, he nodded and ran off, eager to help out.

* * *

Luffy paid no mind to the other parents, teachers and students as he made his way across the narrow road to the bench. For he had been assigned to a mission, like the pirate in his book! He was to deliver Bepo, the warrior of bear-kingdom, to the bear emperor, where he would bring peace to his land once again! If he did not bring Bepo back in time, the bear's kingdom would blow up and hundreds of bears would die! Failure was not an option! The 5-year-old had only managed to cross the road and approach the gates when a familiar flash of red blocked his past.

Kidd had on a tight-lipped smile as he stepped off his black bicycle that Killer had brought for him to use to get home from school. He honestly loved the thing; it was so badass and made him look so cool as well! With the two slightly rounded black rubbery wheels and flaming red paint job that ran across the sides of the vicinity. Oh yeah, he was a speed demon on this thing. He threw back his foot slightly, switching on a metal stick that would keep his bike from falling over.  
"Hey Kiddy! That's a really cool thingy, wh-" Luffy didn't even have time to be upset that he had been interrupted when the older red-head grabbed the collar of his shirt, bringing him closer for his twitching non-exciting eyebrows.

"Didn't I say not to call me Kiddy?! Or I'm gonna kick your butt!" The redhead threatened, trying to look as scary as he possibly could. He really didn't enjoy scaring little kids but then again, he also didn't like being called Kiddy or having random hyper kindergartener knocking him over in the halls. That stuff would ruin his bad name! At first, he had been quite surprised that the skinny, pale, almost sick looking 5-year-old had managed to build up enough power to knock him over. Originally, the 11-year-old had planned to go after the boy and teach him a thing or two, then he would demand him to join his gang.  
Though, as Kidd looked over the boy now, he couldn't help but feel that he was wrong about him. The 5-year-old's eyes were wide with fear, like a deer caught in headlights. The young D wouldn't look at him; instead he was looking at the ground, almost distantly, as if he wasn't really there. The way that the skinny boy was biting his lower lip, hell, it almost made Kidd feel bad. Clearly, the 5-year-old

was just another loser who had gotten pretty lucky. He exhaled once before letting go of his hold. The boy was dropped to the ground with an unpleasant and surprised sound of 'Oof' before getting on his feet again. The two students stared at each other for what must have been the most awkward 12 seconds of Kidd's life.  
"... Hey, isn't that Law's stupid imaginary friend?" The young redhead mused, noticing the stuffed bear in the boy's thin arms. Oh, how he hated that annoying bear! The way Law would always hold it so close to him and take such good care of it. Hell, the doctor would even feed him part of his food at lunch time, it bugged him to no ends!

"Oh yeah!" The 5-year-old gasped, just remembering about his mission. "I'm told to put him on the bench because his sweaty!" With those words, the young D brother skipped past the red hair, paying him no attention, all memories of the moment the two had just shared gone. Kidd blinked, bewildered, was this kid brave? Or stupid? Or even a mix of the two?!

"Wait just a second." The 11-year-old commanded, turning around and nonchalantly walking towards the boy and bear, both of which were now sitting on the blue bench. "Gimme that." He demanded, pointing at the poor stuffed animal.

"It name is Bepo and I think Bepo is a guy." The 5-year-old explained, indifferently, for some unknown reason, this really ** Kidd off.

Just who did this kid think he was?! THAT 'BEAR' ISN'T EVEN REAL! HE'S JUST SOME STUFFED ANIMAL... I MEAN, IT'S JUST A STUFFED ANIMAL!" The 11-year-old shouted, sweat-dropping. It was as that moment that Luffy remembered something during the endless hours of being alone in his grandfather's basement. He remembered that he had adventurously gathered up enough courage to travel to the bottom of the stairs where he had discovered a dirty, rattled up stuffed animal. It was a white fuzzy fox that he had simply called Su, since he liked how it sounded on his tongue. He recalled how he would always share his thoughts with the beaten up toy. Of course, deep down inside, he knew that it wasn't real but he would never admit that fact to himself, because if he did, he would be admitting that he was alone.

"People like you wouldn't understand." Luffy muttered, in a much darker manner than his usual light cheery voice. The 5-year-old hadn't meant to be rude; he had simply stated a fact. Kidd was confused out of his mind, and confusing meant that he got mad and being mad, meant that he became... violet.

"OI!? JUST WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT KID?! WHERE DO YOU GET OFF SAYING SUCH THINGS!?" Kidd found himself growing embarrassed even though, most of the parking lot was clear by now, only a hand full of children and teachers remained, and none of them paid the two much attention. Kidd also found himself feeling regretful for some reason, as he shouldn't have purposely freaked out the younger boy out earlier. "Hand it over!" With one strong pull, the older boy had managed to rip the stuffed bear from the 5-year-old's hold. He slammed the bear on to the sidewalk and stomped on it as the younger desperately tried to get him to stop. In a few seconds, he did stop. He glared at no one in partial as he made his way over to his bike, got saddened in, and kicked his side-stand up. He then proceeded to run the poor abused teddy bear over, time after time again.

* * *

"Now that Lucifer is gone, I should tell you a few more things..." Law spoke as he stood by the window of the car, leaning on the door as he continued to glare at the blond brother.

"Lucifer?" The 20-year-old questioned, raising a thin blond eye-brow slightly.

"If he has a 'nickname' for me, I'm allowed to have one for him." The 9-year-old reasoned.

" Yes, but a nickname is a familiar or shortened form of a proper name, such as calling someone whose name is Michael, Mike." The blond older brother explained. The future doctor narrowed his eyes dangerously, if he hadn't been sure before, he was now, this was totally the guy who abused Luffy!

"While that may be right in some cases, a nickname can also be a descriptive title added to or replacing the actual name of a person, such as calling a boy named Luffy, Lucifer." Law growled while the blond chuckled, thinking that it was sort of cute how the 9-year-old was attempting to beat him, Dragon D. Sabo, at his own game.

"You just proved yourself wrong. Lucifer was an angel that betrayed God and was sent to H.E double hockey stick. Now, which part of that describes Luffy?" The blond was simply toying with the 9-year-old at this point, teasing him in good humor. He was confident after all, he had practically invented this game with Ace when the two were younger.

Sabo grabbed his traveler coffee cup that he was keeping in the cup holder of the car and took a drink. He had drunk more and more coffee lately. What with the sudden change in his college class times, extra homework and that he had been reading that one pirate novel to Luffy every day when the two arrived home.  
Law narrowed his grey eyes. He was sure, this was him! This had to be the guy who did all those trouble things to poor Luffy. This man was evil! He probably did other things to Luffy too, like covering him with oil and setting him on fire, or sexual abuse! This man should remember that karma is a bastard and that Law's mommy and daddy never got married!

"Maybe it's a nickname for his older brother, who beats and sexual abuses him." Law spoke in a cold and nonchalantly way, though, anyone could hear the raw hate and power in his words. The blond, who was taken off guard, spit his mouth-full of coffee on to the window shield of his car.  
"S-sorry, what?!" The man croaked, coughing as his tried to get the left over coffee out of his windpipe.

"My father too, was abusive towards my mother and me. I do not support such actions. You should know that anyone, including myself, have the right to call CPS and take Luffy away from you." The blue-eyed teen looked absolutely horrified as he waved his hands in disagreement, despite trying to reason with the boy, who, apparently, wasn't done talking. "You had a good plan, I'll attempt that much. What did you plan to do? Keep the victim locked up? Stranger and away from the world? Use him as your human stress ball and doll?!" Law accused, pointing at the blond, who was just glad that

Ace wasn't here. "You would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those metilying kids - I mean... If you weren't so stupid as to send him to a public school!" honestly, the 9-year-old was feeling Velma from Scooby doo, oh, how he loved that cartoon!

"Whoa, whoa whoa! Hold up! Wait, just here me out!" The blond pleaded. He was shocked to say the least, not to mention the tiniest bit impressed but mostly mad. How could this kid think that he, the older brother of everyone's dreams, would do that? No comment about that sexual stuff, that was just nasty. "No one is hitting anyone! We just got Luffy a few weeks ago due to some other events."

"Liiikkke?~" The 9-year-old questioned, raising an eyebrow as he leaned in closer, sticking his head threw the window of the car door. For all he knew, this could be an attempt at lying, no, he wouldn't accept that this guy was innocent. He had come so far, he had to know the truth and the whole truth. It was simply the way he had been born. His thoughts had momentarily traced back to when he was four and had investigated about Santa, running tests and doing research. It had gotten to the point where he had forced himself to stay up all night and hide in the Christmas tree, watching for this so called 'fat man' to arrive.

"I wouldn't have a right to say. That's Lu's story, not mine." Sabo answered, shrugging his shoulders. In the few weeks he had gotten to know his youngest brother, the boy had never said a word of his past with his granddad or even cried or anything. Most parents would have considered the boy a happy and easy child, that is, in tell they got a taste of the trouble he managed to get into.

"Look. I. Need. To. Know." Law growled, narrowing his eyes dangerously.

"Nope, sorry." The blond apologized with a fake pity.

"Even if I did believe that you're not the one causing these damages to my subject, which I don't, what have you been doing about it? Treatment wise?" Law interrogated, he smirked, at the very least this would be entertaining.

"Uh... what do you mean?" The young writer asked. Treated? His brother looked to be getting better already.

"My god, you mean... he hasn't been treated?" The 9-year-old asked, horror written on his face. Even he had been treated by doctors for a few weeks after his dad had left. He found himself feeling slightly sorry for his friend now, these were his brothers and caretakers? No wonder the kid was so dense! It must run in the family.

"...No?" The blond raised an eyebrow. Just what was this kid getting at?

"You fool. Malnutrition in youth lowers intelligence by 10 to 15 I.Q points, shaving incalculable potential off a child's development. He would need extra help in schooling for at least an hour a week." The future doctor diagnosed

"...How would you-" The blond started to ask, not sure if he should be believing a 9-year-old boy. Though, now that he thought about it, his baby bro did seem a wee bit slow at times...

"I'm a doctor!" The boy growled, a certain light in his eyes that caused the blond to belive him.

"Oh... right." The writer nodded slowly.

"Don't just sit there, take notes!" Law ordered, snapping his fingers as if he was a teacher of some sort.

"O-oh! Right!" The blond stuttered, taking out a pen and paper from his pocket and making a list as the other male continued talking.

"Research indicates that improving the awareness of nutritious meal choices and establishing long-term habits of healthy eating has a positive effect on a cognitive and spatial memory capacity, potentially increasing a student's potential to process and retain academic information. What kind of diet do you have him on?"

"... Well... it's just a basic eating anything he wants kind of thing..." The poor blond felt like he was being scolded for not doing something right. It was almost comical, the way that the blond was hanging on each word that the 9-year-old spoke like a life line.

"You fool! You know so much knowledge about nicknames but not your own brother conduction!" The 4th grader hissed. While he was horrified, he was also glad to be giving the blond a run for his money, pay back was sweet. "Humans gain weight by eating more than they consume, it's as simple as that! Have him eating 2300 calories to 3000 calories a day. Getting 1200 or more of his calories from fats. Meats, Crabs and cheeses." The future doctor listed each item on his fingers.

"O-okay!" The blond agreed as he desperately tried to write faster.

"Are you having him see a doctor or a therapist?" Law interrogated.

"Umm... no, but you're a doctor soo-" Sabo stammered, not wanting to be called a fool anymore, each time was like an arrow to his chest!

"FOOL! I'm no therapist! Nightmares, insomnia, insecurities and so much more comes from an abuses relationship. Maybe not now, but in the future these can cause serious problems. Tell me, do you love your little brother at all?!" The 4th grader questioned, staring at the blond.

"Y-yes! Of course I do!" The teen spoke the truth. Though he may have not said it or shown it as much, he loved Luffy just as much as Ace did, maybe even more.

"Then why don't you pick up a book and read something about his case?!" The doctor asked, hissing his words.

"S-sor-" The 20-year-old wasn't sure why he was saying sorry but for some reason he felt the need to.

"Don't apologize to me! Have him checked for cancer as well! In the developing world, cancers of the liver, stomach and esophagus were more common, often linked to consumption of carcinogenic preserved foods, such as smoked or salted food, and parasitic infections that attack organs, also known as bugs and other unhealthy foods. For all your know, Luffy's life is already over. He could only have weeks left!" Law snapped. Okay, okay, maybe he was trying to scare the older brother but this guy asked for it! Making fun of his nicknames, calling him wrong, being so carefree and obnoxious, he deserved a good freak out.

"C-cancer?! N-no, t-t-thats" The blond couldn't make himself finish. Tears started to gather in his blue eyes. No, he would never forgive himself if that happens. Oh god, he was gonna be sick to his stomach! He could see it in his head, it was pouring rain, Ace and himself were standing in a grave yard at a grave stone labed 'Monkey D. Luffy, Cause of death: Sabo'

"reply if you understand!" Law was milking the situation big time, enjoying himself at the D brother's cost.

"dblkn~ lksndfg~ kldnf~" The blond muttered, unable to form actual words, Law rolled his grey eyes.

"Hush! I'm not done yet! Have him checked for the top four! Nutritional supplement treatment may be appropriate for major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder!" The young doctor exclaimed.

"NO!~ DOON'T KIDD! THAT'S LAW'S!" The sudden despite scream caused the young doctor to turn around, towards the gates of the school where he saw the most fighting sight of his life. The 5-year-old was fiercely trying to stop Kidd, who was on his bike running over none other than his best friend, Bepo.

"BEEEEEEEPPPPPPPOOOOOOOO~" Law let out the blood curling shout as he sprinting across the thin, narrow road, all thoughts of theorizing Sabo gone. How dare he, how dare kid do this! This was crossing the line!

* * *

Once he approached the scene, he fell to his knees, pulling the destroyed teddy bear on to his knees. He bit his bottom lip, fighting off tears. Bepo had always been there for him, ever since he was young. They were more than friends, they were family. He had sworn, sworn to himself that no matter how old he had gotten, no matter how much had changed, he would always love and take care of his bepo! He was obvious to Luffy, watching him clueless. It was rather cute actually, the 5-year-old looked slightly guilty and sadden, subconsciously sucking his thumb and index finger. Kidd smirked and stood proudly, glad that the bear was dead.

despite wanting to, Law didn't blame Luffy. It was him who had trusted the weak 5-year-old to watch over his treasure and it was him who paid for it. Even if it was Law who had tried to protect Bepo, he wouldn't have stood much of a chance angst the 11-year-old.

"You're a bastard, Kidd!" Words of such madness and such language hardly ever came from the doctor's mouth. Law placed Bepo in one of his arms and stood. The redheaded student was a little caught of guard by the reaction, for all he knew, Bepo was some stuff doll picked up at some toy store. "You just drug your own grave, Eustass." The 9-year-old stated in an ice cold voice, moving his arm to grip Luffy's shoulder in a rather strong hold.

"What?" Kidd asked, sight smirk in place.

"War." With that last, cold, dark and hunting word, Law lead Luffy and himself back to the blond brother's car. Said blond was currently taking notes with spouting words of gibberish. How could he had been so stupid and carefree? Sabo hated himself at the moment.

"Mmdd~lkd~lkdg~lkg!" The blond moaned, clicking a button on the side of the starring wheel the unlocked the doors. Slowly, Luffy managed to clime in to his car seat.

"I made up half of that stuff to freak you out for my own entertainment. Though, you really should get him check out. Please try to use your vocal Mr. Blond Big brother." Law explained, cheeky smile in place.

"WHAT?!" The blond insistently gained his vocabulary back.


	10. Goofballs, Homework & Nasty Plots

**This chapter came out early?! Yes I know! So I already had this typed up and my beta reader was super fast, thank you very much by the way. For the next chapter, please do give me about a week and a half before you start thinking that I'm dead. For I'm very slow at writing with my hurt fingers.**

**~~~~~Chapter 10~~~~~**

_~~~Hello I'm Ace, please go Out with my Brother. ~~~_

_I'm Dancing with Marco right now and not watching my little brother_

_ who has gotten himself in to trouble again._

_._

I'm not the kind of boy

who makes threats to scare you

I plot my revenge silently

And deliver it loudly

.

Seasons changed in Water 7, from summer to fall. One could tell that it was autumn without looking at a calendar, which marked September 22nd by the way. The dozens of maple trees that were spread around the town looked especially beautiful, their leaves turning orange, yellow, red or a golden brown color. Crusty fallen leaves whirled around in circles like a small tornado due to the chilly wind blowing. Due to thoughts about Halloween and a rather large harvesting at Orange Farm's, pumpkins lined the windows of shops. The sound of laughter from kids jumping in a pile of leaves was mingled with the sounds of the howling wind.

If one was to take three rights from Water Seven's Zoo and then six lefts, they would end up outside Grand Line elementary school. From there, if one was to go past a pair of large gate doors, down to the left-wing and open the door marked 12, they'd be greeted by a small classroom full of small, crazy, obnoxious kindergartener. Each writing in a notebook as the teacher took an Advil from an orange median bottle under her desk.

There were four tables that had each been named_ 'A', 'B','C'_ and_ 'D'_. Among the four students sitting at table D, was Luffy, who frowned, playing with his pencil. The other two chairs were taken by a lovely cute girl with blue hair who was writing in her journal, like the children were suppose to be doing and Usopp, who was busy talking instead of writing, or in his case, drawing. That last chair? Well, that was just a chair, no one actually sat there yet.

"Here, have this." The long-nosed boy grinned, handing a ripped piece of lined notebook paper to his friend. "It's my dad's phone number. Have your brothers call him and then you can come with us!" The curly-haired 5-year-old announced.

"Eh... Where are you going again?" Luffy questioned. He unsurely took the scrap of paper from the other boy, looking over the seven numbers. How was anyone suppose to remember all this?!

"I already told you!" The long-nosed male snapped before a light smile took over his face, he enjoyed talking about it anyways. "Were going to buy customers for Halloween!"

"Oh?" The raven questioned, nodding. He had no idea what 'Halloween' was but he trusted Usopp enough not to ask.

"My dad's having a Halloween party at our house." The blue-haired girl chimed in, feeling a little left out.

"That's nice Vivi. So you'll be busy then?" The long-nosed boy guessed. Vivi was a very nice person and one of the few people in the class who hadn't called him a mean name yet. She was a rather boring person, reading and studying though, her parents were loaded! Despite that, she wore a cute dress and pig tails.

"I like parties!" The smallest five-year-old chuckled. Was that what Halloween was? A big party? He was so going there!

"Me too, I wish I could invite you guys but my dad said that it's a _'grown up'_ party. I'm not even allowed to join." Vivi explained, frowning. She actually had a small, small crush on Luffy, though, she would never tell anyone in the whole world! It was just puppy love after all. "Do you want some help with your writing?" She asked. You see, the children had each been given a notebook in which they were suppose to write and draw a picture of their favorite animal. She had picked a peacock while Usopp had drawn an armadillo.

"Nah, I got it." The raven 5-year-old voiced, turning his journal around so that the blue-haired girl could see what he had drawn. "It's a spider monkey! It has lots of eyes and five arms!"

"Eh!? That's creepy, Lu!" The long-nosed boy voiced. Speaking of creepy, another someone had just entered the class room, causing a whoosh noise that instantly caused the 32 eyes to glance curiously at the boy at the door. Most of the students recognized that boy from his white northern style hat that covered his black hair and parts of his forehead. Today, he wore a black mid-sleeved t-shirt with dark yellow shorts that fell to his knees. The wired thing was that he had two backpacks with him, one being his usual paw-decorated book bag while the other was an old gray fanny pack that he wore at the side of his hip.

"The principal would like to see Luffy, please." Law announced nonchalantly, holding the door opening and leaning on it slightly, arms crossed.

"Oh?" The green haired teacher asked from her desk, looking over to said 5-year-old, who was blinking. He suddenly smiled, remembering that he had wanted to thanks the man for the book he had given him. "Go ahead Luffy." Makino approved with a wave of her hand, dismissing the student.

* * *

"So, why do I have to see Principer Shanks, Taffy?" Luffy curiously questioned the other boy once the two had exited the classroom. The two children were now walking through the empty halls. The 5-year-old swung his arms and grinned. He wasn't nearly as afraid about seeing the red-haired man again, after all, someone who gave him such a good book couldn't be so bad, right?

"It's _Principal_ Shanks." The nine-year-old correctly, though, he sounded like he had other, more important things on his mind then Luffy's lisp. It was actually completely normal for the 5-year-old to have a speech disability, seeing how he had never gotten a chance to talk to many people in his short life. Hopefully, it would go away by its self as he got older. "Besides, were not going to see the Principal anytime soon." The 9-year-old went on to voice.

"Oh... Then where are we going?!" The brown-eyed D gasped, had he just cut class? Or had Law just made him cut class? Either way, he knew this couldn't be anything good, then again, that's just the way the boy liked it! "Okay! I'm in!" The 5-year-old cheered.

"... I haven't even explained what we're doing yet, Luffy-ya." Law mumbled, rethinking his choice about bringing the five-year-old along. Said boy simply smiled at him, waiting for him to explain. "Right... Right now we're going to Mr. Bon Clay's gym class to pick up the other members of our team."

"Team?" The youngest male pondered, interested. Now that he looked around, he discovered that Law was leading him in to a different area of the school, towards a large dark orange building he had never noticed in till that moment. How exciting! "Hey, whose on our team?!" The boy cheered as the two males entered the gym class.

The 5-year-old was in complete awe of his surroundings. The classroom had to be at least three times the size of his house, with in-door blue bleachers and a few high up basketball hoops. Two of the four walls in the rectangular room were plan and colored a shade of blue while the other wall was covered in a red padding. As for the last wall, it was completely disguised as a glass mirror, almost like a dance studio would have. The space was filled with the laughter and chatting of a little less than four dozen children, each had one of many different colored Hula hoops around their waist, spinning.

"Come on Zoro! Shake your hips!~" A relatively tall male encouraged one of the 2nd graders, who growled in response. He seemed to be the teacher as well as a possible cross dresser, with the bright pink and baby blue flamboyant ballet clothes he wore. Or maybe it was that heavy makeup and his exposed hairy legs that made him seem so openly gay. He sports a distinct wide grin and short, blow cut black hair.

"This is so stupid..." Zoro mumbled, his chin in his chest. He went slightly red in the cheeks as he bent down to pick up his lime-green Hula hoop. He placed it on his non-existing hips and attempted get it spinning around his body. To Luffy, it looked more like the 8-year-old was trying to do some kind of dance, moving around as fast as he possibly could, disparity trying to keep the ring up. Gravity wasn't on his side and the hula hoop fell to the polished wooden floor with a faint clank. He growled.

"No, no, no Zoro-chan!~ Be gentle and graceful~" The teacher scolded with a wiggle of one of his perfectly trimmed clean nails. He pointed to a familiar orange haired girl known as Nami. "Watch Nami-chan~" The girl smirked. Realizing she was being watched, she decided to put on a show, doing a trick that included her putting her thin arms behind her head and easily spinning her waist. "So elegant, so graceful, so charming, so beautiful!~" Mr. Clay praised, putting a hand on his forehead as if he could faint at any moment.

"Taffy~" The only five-year-old in the room whispered to the only 3rd grader in the room, pulling at the back of his hoodie to get the older boy's attention. "I wanna plway too~" Luffy pleaded, as if asking the older male for permission.

"Smaller children, such as yourself, aren't allowed to participant in gym class, for you could easily get hurt." Law informed as he led the younger boy and himself over to the teacher. Once Zoro noticed the nine and five-year-old, he instantly dropped the hula, clearly embarrassed.

"Don't stop Zoro-chan~" The gym teacher ordered the 8-year-old, who hesitantly began trying to work the ring again. "You may be the ugly duckling right now, but someday, you will grow in to a beautiful swan.~" Bon reminded. Maybe it was the way that the man had said the words that caused Luffy to start giggling uncontrollable. This man was not scary, but a joke. Clay turned his head, facing the children.

"Hello Mr. Clay, good afternoon. The principal has asked me to fetch both Nami and Zoro." Law requested, stepping in front of his younger friend, who pouted. Everything looked so fun he wanted to explore more before leaving! Wait, did the 9-year-old just say they were going to Shanks?

"But Taffy, I though you said that we weren't -" The puzzled brown-eyed boy didn't receive the chance to continue his question when the 9-year-old slammed his palm over his mouth and made a 'shhh' noise. The teacher narrowed his eyes before grinning.

"Okama~ Okie dookie~ Nami, Zoro, be gone!~" The man announced in a sing-song voice to the class. The future doctor wondered how it was that such a man had gotten a job at this school? Did he blackmail Shanks perhaps?

"Thank god." The moss-head student proclaimed under his breath as he let the hula hoop drop to the floor, for extra measure, he also stomped on the ring a few times, getting out his frustration. The orange haired girl snickered, she wasn't worried about seeing Shanks, after all, she was a fantastic student, the top of her 2nd grade class in fact.

* * *

The group of four soon found themselves back in the halls of the school. Luffy was skipping at a very slow speed so that he could speak to Zoro, who refused to skip, despite the 5-year-old's puppy dog eyes, neither Nami nor Law spoke, they simply walked towards the main office of the school.

"Guess what?!" The cheerful question caught the attention of the orange haired girl as well as the 7-year-old. The five-year-old didn't give the to time to guess. "We're not seeing the printable! Instead, we're gonna go on a secret mission! Were gonna become ninjas!" The youngest of the group hollered, excitement clear in his slightly high-pitched voice.

"It's principal." The future doctor's words were ignored.

"Wha- really?" Zoro questioned, raising a thin eyebrow. Although he tried to hide it, one could hear the anticipation in the boy's voice.

"I'm adding another five dollars on your bill for being stupid Zoro! You can't just 'become' a ninja in one day." Nami snapped irritatingly. By this point the four children had stopped walking and now stood aimlessly in the halls between the bathroom's and a few lockers that belonged to the teachers.

"What?! You can't do that!" The moss-headed student barked.

"Ooh~ but just did." The only girl assured, fox like grin spreading across her face.

"No you can't!" The 7-year-old insisted rising his voice "If you could, why didn't you give a bill to Luffy! He was being even more stupid than I was!" The student sassed, growling.

"I'm not stoopided!" Luffy lisped, trying to become part of the conversation too, he was feeling left out.

"I didn't give a bill to him because he's so little, where would he get the money anyways?" Nami reasoned, placing her hands on her undeveloped hips.

"Enough" The oldest student's voice echoed in the empty hallways. "We're not going to see the printable- I mean principal. You're all going to join me in my plan, which includes leaving school grounds."

"W-what?! You want me to ditch classes?! Do you know who I am Law?!" The orange haired girl shrieked, simply horrified at what might happen to her grades.

"Yes. Your name is Nami, the 2nd grader who will do anything for money." The 9-year-old said nonchalantly, reaching in to his pocket and pulling out a 10$ bill that he had stolen from his mother's purse, not that the women would care, after all she was loaded.

"Ooo~ Heh! Whatever you say buddy boy!~" The 6-year-old sung, snagging the dollar and stuffing it in to her training bar. Yes, even at such a young age, she was beginning to developed, oh to be beautiful.

"You got me out of gym, I'm thankful but I'm not going along with you." The moss-headed student informed, turning around as he started making his way down the hall. "I'm going to take a nap. Coming Luffy?" He questioned the five-year-old, he wouldn't mind a little companion, just not from 'Mad Hatter' or 'Swipper the Fox.'

"No way, I'm not sleepy! I'm never going to sleep again!" The brown-eyed boy declared, stomping his foot. He absolutely hated nap time in class, it was so boring! No way!

"You're coming with us, Zoro." The oldest boy stated, smirking slightly.

"And why's that?" The moss-headed student asked, he had a bad feeling...

"Because if you don't... I'll tell everyone about your mother." The future doctor spoke in a low hiss. Zoro's green eyes widened.

"How did you know about that?!" He barked. No one was supposed to know, they would treat him differently, they'd blame him and they'd know that he was different. His hair and skills already made him more different.

"You know a few days ago, when that Miss. Robin women came to pick you up? I heard her comment about your mother and a funeral. Curious, I looked in to it." The future doctor mused, shining a proud smile. He never came unprepared.

"Garr... You..." The 7-year-old growled, baling his small but strong hands in to fist. He was completely obvious to the other two confused children, well Nami was confused, Luffy, well he was blinking, uncaring.

"Wait, weren't you asleep?" The orange haired girl questioned. She recalled how Law had cuddled up with that stuffed bear of his and fallen asleep, claiming that he had stayed up all night thinking about Luffy, which was wired since they were both boys. The orange-haired girl had stayed up late one night before, thinking about boys, but Law wasn't a girl like her. Girls liked boys and boys liked girls, right?! RIGHT?!

"I was only pretending to sleep." Law informed, tightening the fanny pack on his hip as he gave one last smirk to Zoro. It was clearly a smirk that said 'I won.'

"Fine." The moss-headed boy agreed, sending the 9-year-old a smirk of his own, as he thought 'You won this battle but not the war.'

"Yeah! Screact mission with Zoro and Nami!" Luffy suddenly cheered, jumping slightly while grinning ear to ear. "Oh, hey Taffy, what's our mission?" The boy wondered, coming over his excitement.

"To get revenge..." Law took a moment for a dramatic effect. "... on Eustass Kidd."

* * *

Miles away from Grand Line Elementary school was a college called One Piece Academy. Two brothers, Sabo and Ace, attended the school though, they only had one class together. This was due to both Luffy and the fact that the blond brother took on more high level thinking classes then the freckled brother, who was in many remedial classes. At the moment, the brothers were in Mr. Franky's class, the only hour in school they got to see each other.

As usual, the teacher was late. This fact also meant that the class room was in totally caos. Only a hand full of students sat at their desk while the others were standing up talking to friends or running around the rather small class. The room was decorated with super hero encouragement posters. Tall book shelves lined the white walls while about six long, narrow brown wooden tables took up the center of the room along with dozens of chairs.

"PIINNEAPPPPLLLE!~ DO THE PINEAPPLE DANCE~ PINEAPPLE DANCE~ PINEAPPLE DANCE!~" Ace shouted at the top of his lungs in a sing-song voice as he did the Caramelldansen. Which was a dance where one shakes their hips from side to side while opening and closing their hands, which are up on their head. Everyone of the freckled boy's friends around him laughed and joined in with the dance and song but one, who looked unamoused and grumpy. He looked around the 21-years-old with a lean yet muscular body and blond-haired in a unique fruit-like cut. He has a rather sleepy looking dark blue eyes and a little stubble around his chin. The pineapple head wore a purple zipped-up jacket and lose blue pants. Marco was calm but then, he suddenly snapped.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, ACE!" The 21-year-old growled out his battle cry as he started chasing the raven-haired brother around the room, knocking over multiple shelves, people and chairs.

Sabo, one of the few students who waited for the teacher quietly and at his desk, sighed. He looked at the desk behind him where a familiar a beautiful raven-haired girl sat. Robin was being quiet. Quieter then the quiet and mysterious girl usually was. He watched silently as she read her book, but the blond brother could tell she was only pretending to read. Her pretty ice-blue eyes weren't focused, something was wrong. He honestly hadn't known the girl that long, maybe a few months and the two hardly ever talked to her but he still liked her and it wasn't just because she was hot as hell. No, she was smart, interesting, mysterious and from what he could tell, the two shared a lot in common.

Don't get Sabo wrong! It wasn't like he stalked her or anything like that. They simply shared a lot of classes together, were the same age and were both beautiful people! The blond couldn't take it anymore, he gathered up his balls, here goes nothing.

"Hey Robin," He whispered to the raven-haired teen, who closed her book gently and turned towards him. "You okay? You seem... unnerved." The future writer questioned.

"... Who are you?" Robin asked, she wasn't being rude but was simply curious. The blond brother sweat dropped 'S-she doesn't even know my name...' The blond swear that an arrow just went through his chest.

"I'm Sabo." The 20-year-old introduced himself. "...We have a lot of classes together so that's why I know your name." He added, not wanting the girl to think he was a stalker... which he wasn't!

"Fufufu~ Thanks for asking, it's nothing really though." The ice-blue eyed women assured, chuckling slightly. "My neighbor's wife passed away this past week and I'm worried about his children that's all..." The 21-year-old looking women voiced her concern.

"Oh! I have children!" The blond mused, a little too happily since he was glad that his crush had brought up something he could relate to. Robin raised an eyebrow. "I mean, not with another women or anything like that! He's my baby brother all all. No, I'm single!" The blond hinted nervously. Damn, he was losing his cool! "So, how the kids doing?" He questioned, calmly. 'Act cool Sabo, girls like cool sexy guys. I'm already quite sexy so there shouldn't be a problem.' The blond thought to himself with confidence.

"Fufufu~" Robin chuckled "One is blaming himself and not shedding a tear while the older one is doing just the opposite." The 21-year-old admitted. It felt nice to talk to someone since she actually lived alone and was kind of new to water seven. "The man works as a therapist and is very witty so I'm sure he'll be okay."

"Oh, that's too bad." The blond brother whispered, the tiniest bit of pity in his voice for the younger child who blamed himself. Death was hard enough as a full grown adult, it could really mess up a kid.

"Yeah, sounds like it sucks!" A new, familiar male voice mused. Before the oldest D could do anything, the younger D joined the two, sitting in a chair between the two other students. "You poor thing, I bet you been so busy trying to help and stuff you didn't even get to sleep or pay attention in class!" Ace mused in fake pity, ignoring the death glare being given to him by his older brother. "Oh! I know! Why don't you take her to our house and tutor her, Sabo! You're so smart and... smart... It would be easy!~" The freckled teen suggested overly dramatically. The blond's blue eyes widened slightly, realizing what his brother was doing.

"ACE! YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" a once again angry blond man promised. Marco had just zipped open his backpack to find nothing but a pineapple in it.

"Well, it looks like I'll have to be going." Ace excuses himself, quickly getting up and running to his hiding spot behind the teacher's desk. "How did you know it was me, Marco?~" The boy called, cheeky smile in place.

"Fufufu~ Ace is a kind brother, isn't he?" Robin questioned in good humor. 'She knew his name...but not mine...'

"Not once you get to know him... but what he said is true. This is my last class of the day so- you know... I could help you with your 'chemistry homework'." Sabo hinted, winking as he said 'chemistry'

"Hmm. Alright." The raven haired girl agreed, smiling in the slightest.

* * *

Enjoyed it? Please review, I'd love to know what you thought and what you think is going to happen. Thanks for reading.

**Next time:**

"Wow! Zoro you got stuck between in a wall, your pretty stoopided! Shishishi~"

"Shut up and get me some butter, Luffy!"

"Butter?"

"Yes. Moisturizing cream, petroleum jelly, cooking oils, butter, and soap were all often used in the old days for getting unstuck. Like when pirates get they're finger stock in a bottle or an overweight man or women gets a ring stuck to their finger."

"Pirates? Butter? But we don't have any pirates or butter, Zoro! I could spit on you?"

"That works fine."

"Ew! Gross! Your all so disgusting!"


	11. Kissing, Bugs and Skeletons

I'm so sorry this took forever. Its really long, more then 6700 words, by far my longest chapter yet. The reasoning for that is because I plan to take a short break in the writing of this. Just really short, maybe two weeks. I have so many ideas, you guys can not possible understand how frusterating it is for me to not be able to write it due to family and my broken fingers. I do promise that the next chapter, or maybe the chapter after all, will have Sanji in it! So look forward to that.

Also, a big thank you to my beta reader. Honestly guys, with out her, these stories wouldn't be happening so make sure to check her out and thanks her. She works really hard and deserves it!** shimaxkutau **

Now...

* * *

_._

**Kissing, Bugs and Skeletons: **

**This isn't how we thought it would be!**

Chapter 11

_._

"So, let me get this straight..." Nami murmured to herself. Law had just gotten done explaining his reasoning for wanting to get back at Kidd. The four were hidden from the now crowded hallways inside the janitor's closet, since recess had just started at Grand Line elementary school. The hallways were flooded with kids, who, as always, were pushing and shoving each other, laughing and screaming as they made their way across campus. Luffy found the tiny and cramped space cool, like a dark cave of some sort. Zoro was attempting to scare the boy in good humor, voicing scary ghost stories about a skeleton that had no effect on the 5-year-old, who only feared monsters. "You're doing all this... because your teddy bear broke?!" The orange haired girl sweat-dropped.

"He isn't just my 'teddy-bear' he is part of my family." The 9-year-old doctor affirmed with a sight nod of his head, though, no one could saw it since it was pitch black in the closet. "So, what's your plan?" The future doctor asked.

"Wha- Me?!" The orange-haired girl inquired. Wasn't he the one that forced her into this?!

"Yes. I picked each of you for certain reasons." Law informed the group, reaching in to one of the two pockets on his grey fanny pack and taking out a flashlight, which he used to shin on his face, casting creepy shadows along his already creepy face.

"AHHH! MONSTER!" The 5-year-old bellowed at the top of his lungs, tripping over a mop in the closet and landing on his bottom. The moss-head flinched because the scream had been very close to his sensitive ears.

"OH JEEZ!" Zoro gave a manly yelped in surprise once he had noticed Law, who frowned, not looking amused.

"As I was saying," The 9-year-old uttered, unpleased and doubting his choice of whom he picked to join him on this mission. "I picked you, Nami, because I heard a rumor that you can read maps with a usually good eye. This is right?"

"Well yeah, but what's that have to do with-" The orange-haired girl stopped herself from continuing her sentence as she realized something very important. It wasn't like the four could simply walk out the school's gates and get to Kidd's house, no, teachers, other children or maybe even the principal himself would notice them. Even if they were sneaky, nothing got past that Kalifa's watchful eyes. Because of this, they would need to find another exit in the school, perhaps a back door or a pathway of some sort. "I see what you mean, but without a map I'm-"

"I got a map! Ace gave it to me just this morning!" The 5-year-old shouted, happily that he could be helpful in some way. He reached in to the pocket of his red jean shorts and pulled out a crumpled up map, handing it to Nami. The orange haired beauty took both the flashlight and map, using her hands to flatten out the paper the best she could. She studied it for a moment before frowning.

"Why is this covered in red crayon and sticky stuff?" She questioned, her upper lip curled and her nose wrinkling slightly.

"Oh! Me and Usopp ran out of paper this morning so we used that to color on, pretty huh?" Luffy lisped, giggling.

"What about the sticky stuff?" Law asked, rather curious himself. The 5-year-old shrugged.

"You got it from Ace, right?" The mossheaded student asked and resived a nod from the brown-eyed boy. "He's metaly ill so he probably threw up on it." Zoro concluded, causing the only girl in the closet to yelp and drop the map.

"Gross!" Nami cried, shivering. She just touched throw up!

"Don't be so ignorant. Everyone throws up, not just the mentally ill." Law informed, reaching in to his backpack, taking out his white binder and flipping to a map of the school that had been safely sealed in between two sheets of clear transparent paper. "Here, take this one instead. Oh, and make sure we go past the bike racks, okay?" The oldest boy questioned, handing over the binder to the navigator of the group, who studied the page.

"Hey, Zoro, Law." Luffy whispered, suppressing a giggle. "Secret missions are fun, huh?" The 5-year-old chuckled.

"Were in a closet." both the older boys stated simultaneously, both in an indifferent voice. No one spoke for a few minutes, allowing the orange haired girl to focus.

"Okay..." After two minutes the 6-year-old broke the silence, slamming the binder on to the brown carpeted flooring of the closet and shinning the flashlight on it so that everyone could see. "Right now, were here" She pointed to a small box on the paper that was labeled 'Closet 3'. "Believe it or not, this closet is extremely close to the side of the building, it was probably built-in sometime after Shanks became the principal. If I had to guess, I would say that there's a few loose bricks in the walls that we could easily fit-"

"Hey, where's Zoro?" The 5-year-old questioned. He quickly scanned the dimly lit closet again, looking for his friend.

"You're kidding me?! That guy got lost in a closet?! What a dummy!" The 6-year-old female proclaimed, slapping her forehead.

"Shut up woman, I'm just stuck that's all!" a muffled familiar voice protested. Law chuckled and shined the flash light at the corner of the closet where Zoro's bottom half was stuck in a small hole in the wall, the other half of him being outside. It was actually quite comical, the way he swung his feet and shook his butt, desperately trying to get unstuck.

"You were saying how there was an exit in this closet? Well I think we just found it." The 9-year-old announced; a touch of humor in his voice.

"Wow! Zoro you got stuck between in a wall, your pretty stoopided! Shishishi~" The brown-eyed five-year-old teased in good humor, poking his friends legs with his short stubby fingers.

"Shut up and get me some butter, Luffy!" The stuck moss-head commanded, blushing. He was supposed to be strong, yet this simple wall was keeping him from moving.

"Butter?" The orange haired girl asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes. Moisturizing cream, petroleum jelly, cooking oils, butter, and soap were all often used in the old days for getting unstuck. Like when pirates get their finger stock in a bottle or an overweight man or women gets a ring stuck to their finger." The future doctor informed nonchalantly.

"Pirates? Butter? But we don't have any pirates or butter, Zoro!" The five-year-old called to his friend, concern clear in his voice. Suddenly, he gasped, getting an idea of some sort. "I could spit on you!"

"That works fine." was the moss-head boy's reply.

"Ew! Gross!" Nami shrieked. These guys were all so disgusting!

"Agreed, bacteria and other pathogens can be transferred from any bodily fluids such as spit. May I suggest that we either pull more bricks away from the wall, increasing the space, or that we pull Zoro in the opposite direction. Newton's third law 'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' meaning that if we pull or push Zoro hard enough, he will be freed. " The future doctor explained.

"Law..." The 7-year-old said calmly, no longer frantically wiggling.

"Yes?" The 9-year-old replied, ignoring Luffy, who found out that Zoro was ticklish by poking his sides multiple times.

"I don't know what you just said... but get me out of here." The 7-year-old pleaded, probably growing tired of the youngest among the group tickling him.

"I'm adding another five dollars to your bill for wasting our time~" Nami sung, that fox-like grin of hers once again appearing across her usually sweet face.

"What you can't - LUFFY DON'T SPIT ON ME!" The stuck student screamed. It was true, the younger male had just spit on Zoro's neck as an attempt to free his poor friend.

"Sorry..." Luffy apologized sheepishly.

* * *

15 minutes later, the four found themselves at the edge of the school, across from an empty basketball court. The plan had been successfull, no one had seen them; the moss-headed boy had been freed and cleaned from all of the spit. The edge, or rather side, of the school was made up of dirt, rocks and concrete. This was the playground for the middle school students who attended classes on the top floor of the two story school building. Besides the basketball court, a few tether ball poles, a bike rack and half a dozen four-square courts made of duck tape, the field was empty.

"It looks boring here... When do we go on our secret mission Taffy?~" The 5-year-old whined, forced to play with his navy blue t-shirt to keep himself entertained.

"Relax Luffy-ya, we won't be here long. We only stopped here so that I could get a certain beloved bike." The 9-year-old reassured, smirking. This was all part of his plan. "Oh, that's right, Nami, you can pick locks, correct?" He questioned the 6-year-old, who had been petting the ten-dollar bill he had given her earlier.

"Yup." she affirmed, money signs in her reddish brown eyes.

"Pick the lock on that bike." Law commanded, pointing to the familiar black cycle that had red flames licking up the sides.

"Y-you're crazy! That's Kidd's bike, he loves that thing! Your dead meat if you touch it!" The orange-haired girl stammered, taking a step back.

"Meat?" Luffy wondered. That sounded good right about now.

"That's the point, please break the lock Miss." The nine-year-old retorted with that cheeky smirk of his still in place as he ignored the 5-year-old's stupid comments.

"I swear, I'm not getting paid enough for this..." The orange-haired girl sighed, leading the small group over to the bike rack, where she used a small rock and one of her bobby pins to break the lock. Honestly, she had no fear of Kidd, the guy was all bark and no bite.

The group of children made their way down a narrow side road, the oldest among them leading the way since he was the only one who knew where they were heading. The 9-year-old also pushed Kidd's bike along with him, glancing at the object now and then with a sadist grin.

"Law, how much longer do we get to Kidd's house?" The orange haired girl questioned, trotting behind the future doctor.

"Not long." was the only replay from the 4th grade.

"This place looks really familiar." The five-year-old mentioned to his green haired friend, who shrugged and continued walking.

"I live around here." The orange-haired girl interjected as if to answer the 5-year-old's question

"Me too." Zoro informed, now that he thought about it, they all had to live relatively close to each other to go to the same school. Not to mention how he had first met Luffy at the park near his house.

"We're here." Law announced, pointing ahead of the group at a large apartment building. It looked like it could have been an old hotel that had been renovated into an apartment building at some point. It was built in the outer shape of a square, with a patch of grass in the center. A few dark metal staircases lead up to the second floor of the building, which was painted the same tanish orange color as the rest of the housing. It seemed to be a cheap place to live but fairly clean and homey. A display sign in the font told the four children that the buildings name was 'Glally-La'

It was only once the kids had been traveling the building for two minutes, did the 5-year-old finally realize why this place looked so familiar. "Hey... wait a minute... I live here!" he exclaimed. The boy was so excited! He wanted everyone to come to his house and see his pet fly. You see, last night he had discovered a fly and had trapped it inside a paper cup without either of his big brothers realizing. He named it Meat flower since the boy liked meat and he feed the fly flowers. That's what they ate right?

"I know." The oldest among them spoke, nonchalantly as he continued leading them towards Kidd's apartment which was on the first floor, almost exactly under Luffy's.

"Creepie! How do you know that?" The orange haired girl nagged.

"Because my mother is the manager of this apartment." The future doctor informed. He was a little too busy to talk, trying to think of the best way to destroy the redhead's bicycle.

"Oh?" The only girl in the group questioned, raising a brow as they neared the apartment labeled '6'

"Hey look, its Robin." observed the moss-head, pointing up towards the second floor. It was true, the raven haired beautiful was giggling, one hand clutching the metal railing while the other poked the blond man next to her. A blond man that both Law and Luffy recognized.

"And Sabo!" the 5-year-old chimed in, grinning. The two teens talked in hush voices, sounding pleased.

"Your brother? What do you think they're doing together?" The orange haired girl questioned, obvious to Law who was trying to force open a small window on Kidd's apartment.

"How should I kn-" The blond older brother leaned in to the raven haired girl, shutting his eyes. She allowed the blond to tilt her head up in the sightlest, their lips met. "EWWW! THEY KISSED!" The mossheaded 7-year-old shrieked in pure horror.

"Shh!" Law hissed, slamming his palm over the 2nd grader's mouth and pulling the three of them closer to the orange, tan-ish wall. Meanwhile, the raven 5-year-old simply blinked. He had never seen people kissed, it was different and strange to him.

"Did you hear something" A girl's voice, Robin's ask from above them.

"... Wha-? Oh, I wouldn't know..." A bewildered male's voice, Sabo's said, snapping out of his shock. "Right, so I'll drive you home then?" There were a few more words that were slightly more hard to hear and then footsteps of the two exiting the apartment.

"You two need to be quite! Or your blow our cover!" The future doctor growled, turning around to fuss with the window again. He could only manage to open it a little more than an inch.

"Now, Luffy you're the smallest out of all of us. I need you to slide your hand under that window and push open the lock, that way, we can all climb in to his house" The doctor went on to explain what he wanted the five-year-old to do multiple times.

"Okayie! Got it..." Luffy chuckled before easily sliding his skinny arm into the house. Less the five seconds passed before a click was heard and their way in to the home appeared. " Shishishi~ That was easy!"

"Nice Luffy. I never thought being so skinny could be good." The orange-haired female chuckled, teasing the boy. The future doctor was also grinning as he pushed the bicycle through the window. He would be lying if he didn't say that he wasn't the littlest impressed with his team. "Let's get in."

* * *

"This seems like his room." The 9-year-old doctor voiced, looking around himself at the colorless walls and light carpet. Empty soda cans lined the computer desk, seeming to form a pyramid that had been knocked down and left scattered. Two weeks of dirty clothes sprawled out on the floor, socks hanging on the chair, with a single blue and white shoe kicked off on the floor. An unmade dark brown bed with papers thrown about on top of it, a folded pillow half pressed against the wall. And a brown bird nest made out of fast food packages in the corner, next to the overflowing trash bin that no one has taken out in at least two weeks.

"So, what's your plan for 'revenge' anyway, Law? Just destroy his bicycle and leave it around his house?" Nami questioned, dusting off the side of the bed before gently as she took a sit on it. Honestly, the room was a lot less messier then she had guessed it would be, after all, Kidd was a total slob. Don't get her wrong, the space was a mess but she had seen worse.

The 9-year-old smirked as he turned to face the girl while removing his fanny pack and unzipping the main portion of the bag. "Arthropods, spiders to be exact." The eldest boy announced as he held out the bag which contained at least 50 tiny, daddy long leg spiders, each still alive and moving.

"Wha- That's so gross and creepy!~" The future Navigator shouted while paling. She made mental note to never, ever get on this guy's bad side. She was so creep out that she failed to notice the raven five-year-old approach her and the doctor, a curious look on his small round face.

"Ooo~" He awed as he practically stuck his nose in to the bag, getting close to the buggers. "Can I hold them Taffy? Pwease?!" The small boy begged, his hands together in a praying position.

"... I suppose since Nami and I need to 'dispose' of a certain bike, you may." Law, that poor bastard. He would need to find some kind of way to resist those innocent puppy eyes or it would surely be the death of him.

"Eww!~" The 1st grader hollered, horrified. Who'd want to hold them? It wasn't like they were cute little kittens or puppies, they were insects! Gently, the doctor handed the bug-filled-bag to the boy, who grinned ear-to-ear.

"We'll be back in a few minutes, Nami, follow me." The future doctor noted as he motioned for the orange haired girl to follow him out the door. "And you." The doctor turned before fully leaving the room. He pointed at Zoro, who looked as cool as ever, leaning on the wall indifferently. "Watch over Luffy-ya." Law ordered and finally left, closing the door behind himself

"Aye aye captain.~" The moss-headed 7-year-old muttered unethically, rolling his green eyes.

"ZORO!" The 5-year-old suddenly yelled. He sounded mad, angry, hurt, insulted and even disappointed? Having never before hearing his friend sound like this, the moss-headed boy gave the raven his full attention. "YOU CAN ONLY CALL ME CAPTAIN!" The 'captain' scolded his 'first mate', who sighed.

"Whatever..." In the short time that he had known the 5-year-old, he had discovered that it was better to just agree with him instead of taking the time to explain to him that pirates were not real. "So Luffy what do you think about what was going on with Robin and- Ew are you eating those?!" The 7-year-old asked. The slender raven had joined him, sitting up against the wall with a mouth full of spiders. Yes, that's right, the boy was eating bugs once again.

"Mmhmm! There a delicee!" The 5-year-old lisped, nodding.

"Declicee?" The 7-year-old wondered, raising an eyebrow.

"Delicatee!" The boy once again lisped, despite trying to say the right word and in the process spitting.

"Do you mean delicacy?" The green-haired child asked, almost chuckling. He was completely obvious to the loud crashes and bangs that could be heard from the other room. Clearly, Mr. Mad Hatter and Swiper the fox had been getting to work on Kidd' bike.

"Yeah! Besides, Grandpa said they make you stronger!" Luffy assured innocently as he added a few more poor spiders to his mouth.

"I see. In that case cheers!" The 7-year-old attempted to be friendly as he took half a hand full of spiders and also ate them. He wasn't that big on bugs but he'd do anything to get stronger. That much was for sure.

"Where?!" Luffy wondered, looking around the space for any cheers, which he guessed was a bunny for some reason. "I wanna see the bunny!" He voiced, he would catch it and tame it! Then he could ride on the bunnies back like a horse!

"Jeez... Never mind..." Zoro face palmed before remembering that he wanted to talk to his younger friend about something important. "Anyways, what do you think your brother was doing to Robin?" The green-haired boy questioned it in such a way that it sounded like he was blaming Sabo for doing... doing those things to Robin.

"Hmm. I donno." The boy replied carelessly.

"My mom and dad use to do that sometimes. My sister thought it was cute but I think its gross. It's like they're spitting in each other's mouths." The young swordsman gossiped in a hushed voice, crossing his arms. Robin was like another mother to him in some ways, or even an older sister. It was only natural for him to become a little protective of the women.

"Oh I know! Maybe Robin's tongue got stuck in Sabo's teeth!" The younger male suggested, causing the older to raise an eyebrow.

"Do you really think that's what happened?!" It seemed very unlikely to the 8-year-old that someone's tongue could get stuck there.

"Yeah! It makes perfect sense!" Luffy beamed, nodding.

"Wha- how?!" barked the other boy, bewildered.

"Like when you got trapped in the wall, I spit on you to get you free because I didn't have butter so maybe Robin and Sabo didn't have butter either." The future pirate explained, containing to eat spiders.

"Maybe..." The swordsman whispered, he seemed to be thinking about it. He should have given the other boy more credit. He could be smart at times.

"Don't be stupid they were kissing!" Nami shouted as she entered the room. She seemed to be covered in dust and dirt. What on earth had they done to that poor bike? Luffy would never know.

"Oh... Hey Taffy, what's kiss?" The chuby five-year-old wondered.

"Kissing is when someone touches or presses their lips against another as an expression of love, interest, greeting or respect. Now hand me my bag." The medical student commanded, ripping the Fanny pack out of the smaller boy's hands and narrowing his grey eyes once he saw that half were gone. "D-did you guys eat my bugs?" Law questioned, these people were sick and were probably going to die by the age of 25, not that he cared.

"Yup." Both boys simultaneously answered, proud.

"DISCGUSTING!" The orange-haired beauty shrilled. How many times would she have to see such gross things today?

"... I don't care." The oldest among the four muttered and made his way to room's desk, which stood proudly made out of cherry wood oak. Carefully, he started placing each of the bugs in a different section of the desk, spreading them out. His operation would still work, even with half as many spiders. He had just gotten done placing a hand full of the buggers under the unmade bed when the 5-year-old decided to start bothering him.

"Hey! Can we play hide and seek?! pwease?!" The boy questioned sweetly. The doctor shut his eyes, refusing to look in to those puppy dog pupils.

"No." He spoke his words firmly and then went back to work. The 5-year-old frowned slightly and turned to his other two friends. He was not yet ready to give up.

"Pwease! It will be fun, I know the world's best hiding spot!" The boy bragged, placing his palms together as if he was praying to some kind of god.

"No." Just as Law, Zoro and Nami refused the boy in a firm voice. Everyone just wanted to get out of there and return to school unharmed and unnoticed.

"Pwease peaese pwease?!~" The smallest of the crew begged again.

"Okay, fine Luffy you win." The orange-haired girl suddenly voiced after sometime, grinning.

"What?!" The mossheaded student mused, frustrated with her actions. He was a grown boy, he even stopped playing tag last year! The future doctor, who was currently hiding spiders under a rug in the room, raised an eyebrow.

"Really Nami?! Yeah!" The 5-year-old cheered, a giant smile taking over his small chubby face.

"Yup. But, since you're so great at hiding, it's going to take all three of us to find you so I'll count to 10 and you hide." The 'Navigator' explained, sending a wink towards the other boys. A wink that simply said 'I got this, fools.'

"I see... Smart." The 9-year-old whispered. He was greatly impressed by the girl and her skills of manipulation.

"More like evil." The 7-year-old hissed, also realizing what the girl planned to do to his friend. However, he couldn't decide if he'd rather let her plan unfold or actually play with the boy.

"Okay!" The obvious raven student agreed to the terms and jogging to the door of the bedroom, giggling to himself.

"1...2...3" The female started counting, closing her red eyes.

"You'll never find me! I'm gonna hide in the closet!" With those last, cocky words, the 5-year-old closed the door and skipped down Kidd's hallway.

"... He really is stupid." The swordsman sighed, rubbing his temples.

Luffy was pumped! This was his first time playing hide and seek with real people instead of stuffed animals and imaginary friends. He felt proud, proud that he had moved on in his life and that he had real friends and a real family. Sure, he still missed Garp a lot and he had even cried once or twice, not that anyone saw, but still! He was happy with the way life was going for him. He planned to impress and blow his buddies away with his amazing hiding skills. He had a huge advantage since both his and Kidd's house were set up in the same way with the same halls and closet.

He recalled his own new home. Unlike Kidd's three room house, his only had two but everything else was set up just the same. That meant that the huge closet next to the kitchen had to be in this house too, that would be the perfect hiding spot!

"Ahh!~" He lost his trail of thought as he tripped over a pile of tennis rackets. He frowned, he knew he should have been watching where he was going better! You see, Kidd's whole house was a big mess! It looked like no one had cleaned it in years. Random things such as tennis rackets, violin bows and empty tea packages flooded the walkways.

After what seemed like hours and hours of aimlessly exploring the apartment, the 5-year-old managed to find the current closet to hide in. Upon opening the door, he was greeted by a young teen wearing a skull mask. The masked preteen was tall and wore black slacks with a thick dark purple sweater. He had a brown, curly afro and held a cup of tea in one of his hands, which wore a skeleton glove.

"Yohohoho! Hello friend~" The skeleton-like man greeted, waving one of his arms happily. The 5-year-old narrowed his brown eyes. The site was extremely cute actually, the way the boy pressed his fat pink lips together and rose both his then eyebrows, staying completely still.

"Hi. Who are you?" Luffy questioned. He looked almost like one of those things... what where they called? Zoro had just told him a scary story about one of them this afternoon in the closet back at school.

"I'm just bones Brook, and you, little boy?!" The 13-year-old requested a name, lowering his knees slightly to get on eye-to-eye view with the slender youth. The teen was actually quite impressed that he wasn't running, even his cousins were scared of him when he dressed like this.

"I'm Luffy..." The boy grinned, fearless. "Are you a skeleton Mr.?" The raven-haired child asked, turning his head slightly.

"Why, yes!" Brook said in a-matter-of-fact tone, nodding.

"I see..." The boy whispered to himself, putting his thumb to his lip in thought. "I'll be back in a second, okay?"

"Okay Luffy-san! See you later~ Yohohoho!" The talking skull laughed and waved as the five-year-old walked back down the hallway. 'That was strange.' he thought to himself as he reunited with his crew in Kidd's bedroom. It seemed that Taffy had just finished setting out all the spiders around the room. Nami was shivering, the poor girl had seen too many things today. Zoro, still looking cool, leaned on the wall, waiting to go home. Jeez, if he didn't get home in time to hide, his big sister would force him in to another one of her tea party's...

"Umm... You guys I found a skeleton in Kidd's closet..." The 5-year-old informed the party nonchalantly, pointing towards the direction he had come in from.

"Skeletons aren't real Luffy." The orange haired girl sighed, relieved. She thought that the boy had grown a brain and discovered that she had tricked him. She was unsure as to why, but if the 5-year-old had come in here and started yelling at her, she would have felt terrible.

"Skeletons are the internal structure composed of bone and cartilage that protects and supports the soft organs, tissues, and other parts of a vertebrate organism. They are real, Nami, they simply don't talk and are nonliving beings." The future doctor corrected the girl as he rose on to his feet. They were ready to leave now.

"Yeah, what that guy said. Is this supposed to be revenge for me telling you those ghost stories in the closet back at school? I was just joking with you." The moss-headed boy explained, grinning. He had actually been rather proud of those stories, he had worked hard to make them extra spooky.

"No, you're stories sucks Zoro!" The 5-year-old chuckled after saying the words so bluntly "Shishishi~"

"Shut up!" The 7-year-old barked.

"Oh, but they're really is a skeleton in the closet." The 5-year-old repeated himself after he had completed giggling. He looked dead serious, yet not scared. Why would he be, after all only monsters scares him.

"Stop saying that!" The swordsman ordered. He had become sour ever since the boy's comments about his bad story telling.

"Wait a second. There is an idiom of 'skeleton in the closet' meaning a hidden and shocking secret that one has." Law announced, suddenly interested.

"If there's a skeleton in Kidds closet that means..." Nami grinned, unable to finish her sentence since her fox-like grin had grown so big.

"BLACK MAIL!" Both children shouted together, snapping their index finger with their thumb. It was almost as if the doctor and navigator were on the same wave link or something...

"I'm done placing the spiders so Luffy, take us to where you found the skeleton." The 9-year-old declared, trying not to get his hopes too high, after all, it was the 5-year-old.

"Okay! Follow me guys!" The slender kindergartener advised, leading the group of four out.

* * *

"This is it!" The smallest boy exclaimed cheerfully as he ran up to the familiar closet door and grabbed the knob. His buddies stood behind him, each looking somewhat board and not amused. Could you imagine their shock when Luffy opened the door to revile a real life skeleton?

"Hey Brook!" The boy greeted with a smile

"Yohoho!~ Luffy-san I thought you wouldn't come back." The skeleton admitted his lack in faith as he scanned the other children with his eyes, if he had any that was. No one really knew for sure since he always wore that mask, even at school. He would simply refuse to take it off for anyone, most people believed that he really was a monster of some kind and due to that, he never made many friends.

"No, I did and look, I brought my friends." The slender boy babbled, gesturing to his buddies behind him. Nami's red eyes were wide with fear and shock. Zoro's mouth hung open at least two inches. Law simply looked normal but one could tell by his irregular breathing that he was going thought a major panic attack. No one talked in till the 9-year-old finally snapped.

"EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIE!" The doctor was the first to scream at the top of his lungs. All his studies, research and facts... was it all for nothing? This was proof wasn't it? That he had wasted all that time for nothing?! No! I-it couldn't be! The doctor had to be dreaming or something.

"AHHH! LETS GET OUTTA HERE! NOW!" The orange-headed girl declared and in a matter of seconds, all four of them were running down the walkway for their life, the skeleton following just behind them. Honestly, Luffy had no clue about why they were running but he wouldn't question it.

"The window!" The only girl shrilled, partially breaking open the door to Kidd's room and throwing herself in, followed by the doctor. However, Zoro didn't follow. The 7-year-old crossed his arms and stood in the hallway, growling at the skeleton that was quickly catching up to the crew.

"I'm done running! I'm gonna fight it!" He informed his friends, picking up three tennis rackets from the pile and placing two in his hands and one in his mouth. It was a new style of fighting that his dad had started teaching him the other day. He thought he looked pretty cool and wicked powerful with three swords and so he had made it his goal to become the best... the best swordsman.

"YOU'RE INSANE!" Nami screamed, already half way to the window.

"I-it was a skeleton... it... it talked... dead things d-don't talk... it's a law of nature..." The doctor seemed to be having some sort of break down, biting his nails as he muttered to himself.

"Yaay! I wanna fight too!" The younger grinned, joining his green-haired friend while picking up his own tennis racket. He knew nothing about fighting but these rackets sure looked cool! Maybe he could find a bowl or something to wear as a helmet?

"Whatever! Me and Law are otta here. Let's go!" The orange haired girl called as she dragged the grey-eyed 9-year-old through the window, since he seemed to be in no shape to do it himself.

"Law... just clam yourself, think. ...living things: a living breathing e-eating organism t-that takes and contributes ...to they're eco system. non-living things:... do not b-breath eat or n-need water... A dead ...organism:... a once living creature that has become a non l-living thing... L-like a skeleton..." The 9-year-old continued to mutter to himself. His whole life seemed to be falling apart in the blink of an eye.

"LAW! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!" The orange-haired 2nd grader yelled, punching and pushing the male out harshly throwing him out the widow. It was only a four-foot drop, he'd live. She followed after him, leaving the two brave heroes alone.

"Wow, Zoro you look so cool like that. Like a dog with a bone in his mouth, Shishishi~" The 'captain' chuckled, getting in to a fighting pose.

"Now's not the time, the skull thingy is coming... but do you really think so?" The moss-headed pressed. It wasn't as though he cared! No! He just thought that it would be nice if someone did think he was cool, like an added bonus.

"Yeah! You look really really cool! Like a ninja dog!" The younger praised.

"Heh, I know." The mosshead acknowledged. He decided to struck a pose as that moment, one he believed made him look even more cool. In the process, he had lightly hit Luffy with the tennis racket that he held in his mouth. The hit wasn't even enough to browse, maybe just to wake someone up from a peaceful nap.

"Owch, my head, Zoro~" The 5-year-old complained

"Ah, sorry." The swordsman apologized sheepishly. He still needed to work on his tecniques.

"Now, Luffy," The big brother stated, gaining the boy's attention "When another guy hits you, you don't just stand there and take it." He explained. Zoro in the memoire raised an eyebrow. "You hit them back AS HARD AS YOU CAN!" He shouted, trying to get his point across.

As the memoire drifted away from the five-year-old he raised his racket and slammed it in to the back of the moss-headed boy's head. Oh yes, that would brose for sure.

"Owch! What the- Luffy!" Zoro growled, dropping his racket out of his mouth to allow him to feel the growing bump on his skull. As he was about to scold the younger boy, Lu once again wacked him, this time in the butt with the racket. "AH! Jeez stop it!" He hissed, about ready to punch the younger. "I see how you want it... fine!" With that battle cry, the two boys soon found themselves in a heated war that included whacking each other repeatedly with the dangerous, abused toys.

"Yohoho! What a lively pair!" Brook, who sat crisscrossed apple sauce on the flooring amused, clapping his gloved hands together.

"Ahhh! It's back!" Zoro had complete forgotten why he had wanted to fight in the first place, now he remembered. "Let's get outta here." He decided that for now, running would be the best way to stay alive and escape. He dragged the 5-year-old along with him, holding on to the boy's collar.

"Wait! Mr. skeleton! I have to ask you a question! Do you po-" Luffy was cut off by the mosshead, who was attempting to push him out the window to the freedom of the apartment.

"Oi! There no time!" With one strong pull, Zoro managed to pull himself and his friend to safety.

"Yohoho! Thank you! Come again!~" Brook called out the window as the two ran to catch up with Law and Nami.


End file.
